I wanted to show some of my latest plein air paintings. The first here is of Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area. This is beautiful Florida landscape, but, ironically, it's not natural. In building the interstate highway, they needed a lot of dirt, so they decided to turn the hole they dug into natural looking lakes for wildlife.
Also good for artists!
A small view made large
In the photo above, the area that I’m painting is a little section to the left where you can barely see the palm trees that I’m highlighting. I like to focus on a tree or trees as a subject for the painting, to focus on and give some shape and purpose to the composition.
Always include a water feature
I also wanted to include the water of the lake and made the attempt at representing the beautiful reflections in the water. I also wanted it clear that it was water, so I made sure there was enough blue and that it was different than the sky.
The magic that made it all come together, for me, was the burnt sienna that I used as shadow for the reeds in the foreground. That’s the moment I got happy with the painting and put my handle on it.
Florida is chaos to me
Here we made a stop at the Woodmere Park in Venice. There’s a lovely little pond to the side that we decided to paint. I focused on a tree in the foreground and made everything around the tree. The problem for me was that as I looked at the land around me, all I saw were tiny details that I couldn’t hope to portray. By the time I was done with them, I felt the tree was lost. So I made it red and pink with violet leaves.
Not every painting is a winner, which is why we do many many paintings. As I like to say “Do another, but better!”
