Betsey Nelson - Field Pastel Sketches

Betsey Nelson - Field Pastel Sketches
These are two small (5x7) or smaller field sketches out of multitudes of sketches i sometimes do while scouting areas for plein air painting. Sometimes just the act of doing them looses up my color senses and some wonderful surprises happen. Plein air painting for me is about discovery not about just recreating the scene in front of me. There really needs to be more to make it stand on it's own. My search is to find that and i can only do that when i open up to allow it to happen.

Robert Burridge - Tree Study #2

My favorite time of year is autumn, when the leaves turn blazing colors. With this quick tree study, my goal was to showcase a line of glowing trees. My challenge was to use the color in an effective way - and have only one tree be the "star." 

This painting started off as a "mess" and I did negative shape painting to create the treeline first,  then I pushed back the background trees with darker color, then added the brightest colors to the center front tree to create the depth. 

Original acrylic painting on paper, 10x10 $275 + 25 shipping/handling