Blog

Daily Painting - Mountain Mill

Mountain Mill

 
This is painted from a reference photo I tool when I lived in Colorado many years ago. It was, at the time, a operational mill tucked up on the mountain side. I was really drawn to the pattern the trees made behind it as they climbed up the mountain side. This turned out to a be a bigger challenge then I thought it would be to paint. I try to think in terms of the abstract when presented with such things to paint. Sometimes it helps even if it doesn't seem like it is.

 When I was at the Academy of Art (in Chicago) we painted almost exclusively from life every day. For a few years after I graduated I continued this practice and then somewhere along the line I started to paint almost every painting from photos. I'm not sure why this happened. I guess it's because I use to paint a lot at night back then. Now that I'm doing these daily paintings and painting life again when ever I can I really realize how limiting a photograph is. I know I will need to work from photos once in a while just because of my schedule, but I really want to make an effort to paint more landscapes from life. I don't think this will happen in the next few days, but hopefully soon. Stay tuned!

ArtBloggin.com, the first Artist Blog Search Engine