Wednesday 6 November 2013

First Snow of Winter - sold


20x15cm

I'm still not ready to paint plein air often at the moment and unless stated my landscape work is from my own photo references. A week or so ago I took a long walk with my camera and came home with lots of future paintings. Some will be be small eBay paintings some will be larger.

This painting is a good example of my approach to painting in that the photo reference was only used as a base reference. I could have painted this close to the photo and it would have been fine but as soon as I put in the sky I thought of snow. I do this often, reacting to my first application of paint which may not be a true reflection of the actual subject - if it doesn't work you can just wipe it off, but if you don't try you'll never know!

I changed the colour of the sky on purpose to see what would happen and this is what happened - for good or bad :)

How the painting looks in a frame (painting is not supplied framed)


3 comments:

  1. I like your approach to painting. It seems to me that photos don't help but prevent to paint. I never use photos when I paint. I fear photos might have fatal influence on my painting. If I had no time to finish my still life before flowers withering, I pin my hopes on my memory. If I see a wonderful sunset and at the moment I haven't my tripod, oil, brushes - I make a "summary" in my sketchbook (a tonal sketch with captions about colours). May be I'm not right, I don't know.

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  2. Using photos is much maligned but really there is no problem if they are used with caution. The preference would always be to paint from life but that is not always possible.

    With photos you just need to know the pitfalls. During 2014 I will be painting plein air until then I'll use photos. The main problem with photos is copying them exactly, if you don't do that and compensate for their faults you'll be fine.

    I am inexperienced with painting landscape and currently I am building that experience up so when I begin painting plein air next year I hopefully can hit the ground running and that is the main reason I am using photos at the moment. For me it's just part of my progression but not something I will be doing long term.


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    Replies
    1. I fully agree with your opinion. You're quite right!

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