Here's one of the two paintings I did from my hotel room window, after wimping out on the cold Saturday afternoon at the Plein Air convention last month. I took tons of beautiful photos, and really was dying to paint. I'm just too much of a 'studio' painter to uncover my hands and stand in one spot outside when it's less than, say, 65 degrees!
Here was one view from our hotel room (the view changed very rapidly on Saturday!)
...and here was the painting I attempted to create from the awe-inspiring view:
I had to settle for a general impression of the range, and the feeling of temperamental cloud patterns, as various mountains appeared and disappeared with the clouds and rain. It was also a learning experience to realize how very high-key such a distant landscape really is when viewed with the eye. The photo shows it much darker than it really was. Still, I had a very hard time with the red of the rock; that was quite subtle and difficult. I was glad I hadn't tried this outdoors!
When I finally tired of keeping up with this view, I rolled my eyes in frustration and caught sight of the breaking clouds above. I instantly set to work on "Straight Up", which was much less trouble, as clouds still look like clouds even when they change position. This little piece of sky soothed my need for some sort of creative success on that day!
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