Adventures in Paint & Pastel

I've had a blast doing several plein air paint outs this summer around Michigan.  I considered them to be great training, all while enjoying being by the water.  Anytime I'm out there painting against the moving sun and weather is always training in itself.  After all, I never consider a plein air session a waste, even if the painting is a bomb.  The act of observing nature always gets put to use in future work.  But painting under the clock adds a whole new dimension and pressure to the process.  Learning to make composition and painting decisions quickly and decisively, creates simpler, stronger work...eventually!

 One paint out in particular, had its "quick draw" the day before.  I armed myself with pastels, as I felt I could paint faster with them.  The time limit was 2 hours.  So, then I got a bit cocky and thought why don't I try to do 2 paintings - 1 each hour!  A stretch for me for sure, even with doing small  8" x 10"s.   The first was the beach with a red fence.  I'll post it later, as I want to rework it.  It did not sell.  However, the image posted was the 2nd painting.   It is looser than I have ever painted before.  I found my right and left brain arguing with each other as I sat on the beach painting.  One part of me wanted to slow down and accurately get the light and shadow shapes of the figures.  "After all," I told my other half, "I can draw that"!  But instead, I found myself throwing down pigment that seemed to be more of an emotional gut response to color and design, with my brain disengaged.  It was beyond being in the "zone".  Certainly out of my comfort zone, as I prefer a more controlled purpose in the process.

When the time was up, it was very unsettling for me to turn "The Umbrella" painting in, in its loose state...but I did.  What blew me away, was the positive response to it I received from many people.  It immediately sold and could have sold a couple more times!  The next day I painted in oils with no sales with them.  Someone even approached me and asked why did I even switch to oils, as the painting the other day was so much better and had more life.   He even said he was captivated by "The Umbrella" and stared at it for the longest time.  Huh?... I thought as I sat back scratching my head.  Did I need to reassess my whole painting approach - should I throw my drawing skills out the window?  

I decided there's a place for every kind of painting.  I was not going to give up totally on exercising a more controlled approach to painting all the time.  But, I did need to take notice of this response to the bold color and looser style.  This is what people reacted to.  So the next week I was on the other side of the state for another painting event, and we had 1 day, or 6 hours to paint.  I did 3  8x10 pastels.  They were more refined than "The Umbrella", but they were full of bright color and fresh direct strokes.  I purposely chose local businesses and boats that had bright color, and just felt like summer.  People responded positively to them and they all sold!  

So, lessons learned:  1.)Listen and watch how others respond, or don't respond, to the work.  2.) Let my "gut" or emotional response get more involved in the painting process.  More "right brain," less left-brain.  3.) Just because I can render something with perfection, doesn't mean I should or need to.  Less is more!