Susan's Evening Walk

Susan's Evening Walk 10 x 12

This is a recent commission of the scene outside my client's vacation cabin in New Hampshire.
It was painted from a lovely photograph Susan took.
I don't usually paint from photographs but this one had a lot of positives going for it:

The Arrangement of light and dark areas( the foreground trees were already separated in value from the bog beyond.)
The Color contrast of warm and cool colors along with complementary colors.
The Subject with a clearly depicted foreground , background and lovely atmospheric perspective.

I made a few adjustments( of course)

I grouped the trees more closely together for the sake of the composition.
The value of the water was lightened to help with distance.
There were bird houses on the trees that were distracting.

I enjoyed this collaboration and hope it is the first of many!

Why I Revised Point Lobos Summer

Point Lobos Summer 11 x 14


I thought Point Lobos Summer was finished but as I looked at it it needed something, it took until this week for me to know what to do.
Originally the foreground was a very warm, intense gold, which was very close to what was in the landscape. I realized it overpowered the rose green  areas by the trees and rock clff that I  had intended as the focus.
To bring the painting into balance, the foreground needed to be cooler but not darker.
Here's where my willingness to break any and all rules to get a painting where it needs to be comes in.
After rewetting the area and blotting off excess pigment, I mixed a pale lavender ( actually the sky color) using as much white as I needed to create a semi opaque wash and scumbled it over the grass area to create texture and change to hue to one that is more in keeping with the rest of the painting.

Here's Point Lobs Summer in it's earlier form.