The trouble with Plein air

 Something that was worked on and on and on until there was no saving it. The results of beating a dead horse left me with a weeks worth of trying to paint larger paintings and wiping out three 16x20s and deciding to never paint again. What I have come to conclude is. 1) I become much too busy trying to accomplish a final piece, I forget everything that I try so hard to teach students. (The basics and the thumnails). 2)I need to step back, take a deep breath and just breathe. I need to quit worrying about time, whether I will ever get there, and will I ever accomplish what I want to accomplish?
It is so important to work out the composition fully before you start a larger painting. The hope you just "get lucky" is more of a inspirational killer than spending only a few minutes working out the sketch beforehand. I spent the last few days wallowing in the pit of throwing all my hard earned and joyously purchased pastels out the window. I never wanted to see them again. Until...this morning.
Bound to get back to the joy of doing these little 4x4 inch paintings ( compositional color sketches) brought me back into seeing the light!
After much of the downward spiral  I had gone through last week (see right for an in depth description) I decided to work on the small color studies once again and ignore the looming larger format pieces. I thought after doing a few smaller studies I would go back to the "stuck in my head" scene and reconfigure it once again.







Still trying to keep it in a vertical format. The above piece is what I ended with and in only 10 minutes time. I will pick from one of these smaller pieces and start from there to work on my next larger piece. I promise this to myself .

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This piece is no longer in existence. Wiped clean by a need to "fix" something that eluded me. So fixed on keeping the composition before me as I sat "en plein" air, I must really know when to walk away or just start over. Here is the following process of how I seem to do everything backwards from the get go.

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The first painting I did en plein air was a small 10x8 horizontal. I started off with a sketch in my sketchbook indicating a format of a square painting. Problem 1 in which I did not adhere to. Use the same framework as you started with in your thumbnail sketch. I had a box of ill conceived pastel pieces in which were  thrown together, none of which was pleasing my eye but so they say "if the values are right it doesn't matter what the color".  So I made the mistake of taking too long at trying to make it work. The second piece was after lunch break. Just throw in the colors and get what I was after in the first place. The bright Spring green popping through the evergreen trees. Did I achieve that...I think not.  Last I would try an even closer view only in my favorite medium...charcoal. Ok, its the end of the day and I finished with a sketch. Ass backwards all the way.
What I thought was my problem once I got home was to paint this painting in a vertical format. Notice...Ass backwards...dive right in. (Still ignoring the sketch in my sketchbook indicating a square format).  I need to get something done. Two days of struggle with color and I am still not happy . Therefore let's try and fix some more and three days later, really have nothing to show for it...except....a heart rendering knowledge that I will not ever pick up a pastel again.