Friday, January 4, 2008

"Light from Above" Plein Air


Untitled Plein Air, 11" x 14" oil on linen 2006

These are two paintings done on location at the same spot on different days. The top piece is more about the fields, trees and what is going on across the fields, so I pushed the sky way up to the top of the canvas. I like the way that this painting turned out, but I have kept it in the studio to use as reference. I have had a larger version or two of this scene on my mind for a while.

The painting below was the inspiration for "Light from Above", yesterday's post. The effect of the sunlight coming through the clouds did not last long. I thought that the sky in the plein air was less dramatic than I had remembered, so I reworked the idea in the studio from memory and using the sketch. In the 11" x 14" studio version I added some darker colors to the surrounding sky and ground to really make the light coming through the clouds pop the way it was on that afternoon. The fields of alfalfa were really amazing looking, so I worked that color a bit too to try and get it right. You can also see that I moved the trees around some to suit my needs. They are spaced more like they are in the top painting.


"Light from Above" plein air, 8" x 10", 2007

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Really great stuff, I can see through these your balancing of the abstract composition and the descriptive elements.

Ambera said...

The bottom of the two is my favorite, probably because I'm a sucker for skies. Both are beautiful, but you've achieved a different mood on the bottom that I prefer.

Frank Gardner said...

Thanks for your thoughts on these Eric and Ambera.