Painting from a Plein Air Study

I have talked about plein air paintings many times.  They can serve as finished pieces to frame and sell if they are successful, and they are often my favorites because of their freshness and simplicity.  Mine are always small, but I have seen very large pieces painted on location.  Some artists make several visits to the site on days with similar conditions in order to paint a large canvas.  I envy those who can paint fast enough to get something larger finished in one session.

However many paint on location in order to gather basic information, such as color notes, with no intention of coming up with a finished painting.  When I say color notes I mean putting down the value/hue/temperature of the main elements of the painting, perhaps leaving out any kind of detail whatsoever.  A reference photo provides details where necessary.

I always aim for a somewhat finished piece when possible, but sometimes I use an outdoor work only as a guide for a larger painting.  Here is an example of an attempt at this.

Recently I painted with a group of friends on a golf course by a river.  It was a bright morning and the sparkle on the water drew me to the scene.  As I have said before, I do not like to paint golf courses.  Here is my reference-

It was a good day for clouds.  I had to zoom in quite a bit to see this distant layering of land and water.  I didn't want to include the golf course in the foreground.  The entire scene was vast, but I thought I could make something of the shapes in this limited area.

It took a little over an hour to paint this 6"x8" study-

I put the darker values in first, trying to exaggerate the shapes.  Though not in my reference, I borrowed some nearby land shapes for the foreground.  The water was moving quickly in bright sunlight so there were no reflections.  I pushed the distant trees farther back and warmed up the sky and clouds.  The plein air piece looks a lot more like the actual scene than the photo.

While working in the studio I never looked at the reference photo.  Using the study, I painted this 12"x16" painting-

I decided to raise the horizon to make room for a more dominant foreground.  I played around with the land/grasses shapes to make a lead in through the sparkly water toward the distant water and trees.  I darkened the water in the foreground to give it more depth. The painting wound up being more about the water than the sky.  After all, that is what spoke to me that morning.

Painting a bright scene like this on location  is best done quickly, thus my tiny canvas. My eyes get very tired after a short time.  I break the rule about sunglasses because my eyes are more important to me than my painting.  I do remove them periodically during the process to see what I am actually getting down so I can make adjustments.  I will save the little study in case I decide to try this again, maybe with a different composition, perhaps mostly sky.

Speaking of bright scenes, here is a reference I took that was just to the left of the scene I painted.  I knew my eyes couldn't take it so I will try it from the photo, hopefully soon before my memory fades.  Having done the other paintings will be helpful.

Thanks for reading!

P.S-  I did it after writing this post.  11"x14", "Rain and Shine" because of the drama I added in the background.