Composing on the Fly

In my continued effort to paint more outdoors this year, I stepped out into the backyard to pint the pear trees that are in blossom. I immediately lost focus and spent the entire time trying to compose the painting on the fly instead of figuring out what my game plan was before putting brush to canvas. Then it clouded over and I scurried inside with my stuff before the thunderstorm hit. I think I like a lot of things about the painting, but it completely ignores the main thing I was trying to paint - the Pear Tree blossoms. All my time was spent on the background instead. Tomorrow I'll try again, with a more intentional approach, and see if I get results more in-line with my goal.

I think this may be the hardest part of painting outside - all the extra sensory overload makes keeping focused on the painting quite hard, and it can be very easy to lose focus and go off the rails. I'm gonna really have to work on getting better at painting outdoors and getting the sorts of results I want. It should be a fun challenge for this year!

-ZR