Pursuing my passion

The first day of my trip to Big Bend with OPS (Outdoor Painters Society) we ended up on the backside of "The Window" for our late afternoon painting. The shadows on the mountains were changing so quickly we were scrambling to get the canvas covered. About half way through I had the realization that my brain was fried...about the time the photo below was taken.  

I had already painted a 16 x 20 canvas earlier in the day and trying to do another fairly large (12 x 24) painting required more focused concentration than I had left in my day's supply. I "finished" in about two hours, but some of the shadows and the foreground needed more help later. After trying a few different foregrounds searching for a better composition, it was brought to my attention that it would be better to do another painting instead of trying to salvage this one. So, I'll honor the effort and perhaps use the color and other info for a future painting.

Some have asked why I choose to paint larger outdoors (unless it's windy!) It has its pluses and minuses, but the two main reasons are one, it helps me to stay looser - my brush strokes tend to tighten up when I use smaller panels or canvases. The second reason is I want to capture as much info as I can on the subject. It takes me about the same amount of time to paint a 9 x 12 as a 16 x 20 because I use bigger brushes and paint faster. (psychologically I feel there's no time to waste) I capture the shadow patterns first, overall color and sense of light. I also like having the room to push the paint around and lay on thick layers of paint if necessary. Usually I'll refine the painting later in the studio and correct any obvious errors. If I want to do a large studio painting I've got a lot more to work with from a 16 x 20 than say an 8 x 10 or 9 x 12 although I've seen many artists capture a lot on a smaller canvas and do a beautiful job. It just didn't work as well for me. 

One of the amazing things we saw at Big Bend were the evergreen madrone trees. Hope you can see it's orangey-red bark that looks like it has been spray painted because the colors are so bright. The red/pink cactus was outstanding, too. My first trip to Big Bend was memorable in so many ways and I look forward to the day I return to paint this challenging landscape!