DAILY

"Pair of Pears" 6" x 8" oil on canvas

I've gotten back into doing dailies. These
small paintings are really helping me
with brushwork and seeing colors in
shadows. When painting outdoors, especially
on a bright day, your iris of the eyes tend
to close down because of the bright reflections
coming off the ground. Seeing colors in
the shadows becomes difficult so I tend to
overdo these areas. Then back in the studio
or, worse yet, when framed and hung in
the gallery the colors jump off the canvas
when you really want them to be more subdued.

Brushwork is a constant fight between not enough
and too much. I'm finding the dailies painted in
30 minutes or less force me to make better
brushwork decisions. Now I'm anxious to
find out if I can carry this over into the plein
air work first and then the bigger canvases.