Longing for Sunny Days

This morning I realized that I have not plein air painted in months. Today, like much of this winter, is grey and colder than normal (feels like 5 degrees).

Summer Sun 8x10

Sadly, I don't remember the last time that I painted en plein air. November was abnormally cold here and the chill still remains, 4 months of below average weather plus snow and wind... Brr. I miss sunshine and warmth and painting from life.

Last night I worked on a painting from a photo reference that I took last summer. I had painted a similar scene from life last summer; however, it was not a successful painting back then. Last summer I had tried to mass in the sunflowers but somehow I struggled and the result did not work.

 Yesterday I approached this painting more thoughtfully from a different view and with more intentional design. Now, this is a more successful painting to me. I created a high horizon and I like how the lines of the grass and field of sunflowers leads up and over to the horizon. Also, I am pleased with my tree background greens. Plus the barn was more grey but I made it more purple-ish to complement all of the yellow. Cerulean blue near and around the yellow sunflowers was helpful to keep the color bright, and later I went back in and added some complementary purples. I really like how this painting turned out, as is.

I can get caught up in details, and that would be a problem if I tried to paint each and every sunflower, there were a million sunflowers.  First I established the "lines" of fields to the horizon using cerulean and bright greens. Then I massed in the yellows starting with cad yellow up front and ending with radiant lemon towards the top.  Then I went back in over the yellows with brownish red and orange to define the flowers further. For the house, I made it a purple grey as I know purple would complement the yellow wonderfully. And, I paid careful attention to the light on the green trees in the background. Plus, the sky was very very light, I feel that I got that right.

This painting makes me long for sunshine and summer warmth, like the day that I sat and painted this from life, like the day that I took the reference photo for this work. Ah memories!