Grizzly Bear - alla prima

This is a small painting I did last week of a grizzly bear. This painting was done "alla prima" meaning I did the entire painting in one painting session rather than building up multiple layers of paint throughout many sessions. The entire piece took me around 3.5 hours, much less time than I typically spend on a piece. I wanted to do the painting alla prima as an exercise to help me loosen up my painting style a little bit. With this style of painting you only have one shot and you are forced to concentrate on the most important aspects of the idea, rather than the intricate details. I used looser brush strokes and tried to build up the texture of the paint in some areas to add interest. Overall I think the painting has a fresh look that I hope I can transfer into some of my studio work.

plein air study

I went out last week and did a quick plein air study. This was just a really quick study (about 1 hour) and wasn't meant to be a completed painting. The main thing I wanted to study was the value changes of the mountains going into the distance. This is something that can be hard to capture in a painting if you're relying purely on a photograph for information because the camera leaves things out that only the eye can see.














Plein air painting is definitely challenging and I'm just now starting to figure it out. Hopefully this year I can do it enough to build up some confidence and produce some nice paintings on location. I'm already realizing the influence these paintings have on my studio work so it's definitely worth the time and effort.

"Passing Through" - reworked

This is a piece I did last fall titled "Passing Through". I think my work has improved quite a bit since I originally did this piece and since it had not yet sold I decided to change some things. I specifically wanted to address some value issues that I've noticed as well as adding some new texture to the piece. Here is a before and after:

Original Piece

New Reworked Piece

I don't make changes to older pieces very often but this case I think I was able to make the piece much more appealing.