Showing posts with label orchard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orchard. Show all posts

Sunday, September 14, 2014

PORTRAIT OF A TREE

PORTRAIT OF  A TREE

Let me tell you the truth...

Ready?

I participated in a weeklong plus three days
Starry Night Plein Air Event
in 
Corrales
New Mexico

The below painting is my 
FAVORITE

But...
it couldn't be counted as plein air
as this crazy tree had a mind and limbs of its own 
that didn't compute to any tree I knew

So tree and I fought
and I had to paint more than the maximum of the allowable 20% in the studio

Plein air paintings must be 80% done in fresh air.

Portrait of a Tree
12x9
Beautifully framed
Click here to purchase.

At 8 AM, I couldn't see the tree's shape
What was behind the tree and what was the tree?

Two days later I came back and took a photo of this apple tree from a kneeling position
Ah...I see the limbs...
Who trimmed this tree like this anyway?????
Does it produce more apples if it is a caricature?

Webster Dictionary:  caricature
  "1. exaggeration by means of often ludicrous distortion of parts or characteristics"

I had to edit out the entire orchard back in my studio
and paint sky behind the tree in order for the tree to be
seen as a portrait

Lesson learned from this:
Draw first
Paint later