Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Daily Painting Plein Air Practice - Day 22 - Lake Study at Sunset

My inspiration coach/wife got me to run out to the Benson park before supper the other night. She was rrrrr again. The light was beautiful. The only problem I discovered was how fast the light changes at this time of the evening.
I only had about 15 minutes to try and paint.
Before it got this dark. The idea is there for a large painting but my color sketch was just starting before I had to quit.

Lake Study
8"x10"
oil on canvas board

I think painting plein air at sunset may require several return trips. Either that or, I need a better plan to paint faster. The benefit which I see to this quick draw practice is that each brush stroke must be the correct value and color.( I missed that) You only have time for one shot so each brush stroke is a final brush stoke(missed that too), I'll need to practice this more.

2 comments:

René PleinAir said...

Your right about that, Larry Seiler made a project about that once, by counting the numbers of brushstrokes during his still life paintings, very intriguing. One think I think that crucial about sunsets or daybreak's is the atmosphere, the mood that it give YOU and trying to focus that in a single point, .... and of course large steps, brushes and towels.

Nice effort, ....

Ed Terpening said...

Yes, this is great practice...painting under the pressure of time caused by fast changing light or other factors (like a park ranger kicking you out of a park) causes me to paint more intuitively, which works well for my style.