Spring!

It was very warm Sunday which meant I could go outside to paint wearing just a T-shirt while there was still some snow on the ground. So here is an 8x10 quick sketch (3 hrs) of an area near my house. It does not look the way I wanted it to. I wanted it to be less detailed and more gestural with better lines and composition. But I got hung up painting the trees instead of the forest. But it's a start. Last time I went through a lanscape phase it took 6 months to work through getting hung up on detail to get to the point where I could just throw a mark down and not question or correct it. Perhaps when I do my next one I'll give myself a time limit (1 hr?) and see what happens. Often my paintings are fresher in the beginning and sometimes I just over work them and they loose the spontaneity. The good part of this painting is that I was much more generous with paint than usual. Usually I use very thin washes. Though I'm not used to painting all in one go so I don't know how to think several steps ahead as I work. Here's a photo of the spot: