We had so little snow this past winter. One Saturday morning I woke up to a foot of it plus sun. I spent the day running from window to window painting little 8"x 8" canvases of all the shadows, shrubs and trees. Of the ten paintings I did only this one looked good the next day.
This is my process: paint a lot, look and respond, and then weed. I've been disappointed in previous attempts to take a painting further and make it more finished after a plein air session. So I started a new canvas with the one above as the study.
Above is the result.
I see merits in both. Drawing and painting directly from nature has a spontaneity that I like, but often the brush work looks less polished and the paint doesn't cover all of the canvas. The colors in the second painting are bright, I've thought more of composition and there's paint from corner to corner. It is a different painting, though.
