I paint from life. One reason I developed this preference was my having too many unfinished paintings left over from classes. I called it "Painting to a Pile" and I quickened up my painting speed so that I could finish, or get close to finishing, pieces while the still life was set up. As a side benefit, this tendency toward a need to finish something live on site is what made me a plein air artist. I guess a secondary influence to me needing to finish during class was me having a very poor $40 digital camera, which provided images a bit tough to work from.
On rare occasion, I paint from pictures from, for example, vacations. To me, if a picture is beautiful, there's no need to paint it. Louisiana Bayou is from a vacation picture I took while on a bayou tour. Who knew alligators liked marshmallows so much?
As far as I know, no alligators were in this photo. I liked the back glow and how it reflected. Hmm, what might lie beneath?
Lousiana Bayou
Pastel on Elephant Colorfix
8x11
SOLD
Posts
