adding photo taken in more natural light

This summer we spent a weekend in Aspen, attending the music festival and enjoying the wonderful scenery. The city has a beautiful garden which was built as a tribute to John Denver, who spent much of his life in the area. The reference photo, above, and the photo of the painting refer to this lovely setting. Painting both water and rocks can be tricky for me, and i changed a few things from the reference photo in order to make the painting “work” better. It’s not quite finished, but is really close. 9” x 12”, oil on panel.

This painting began life with the goal of showing a path to a beautiful beach in Oregon. I didn’t start painting it till i returned to Colorado from a trip to Oregon and so was working from a reference photo that didn’t represent the scene as i’d imagined it. the trees in real life are probably Douglas Firs, but in the photo they are much more bare than i wanted for the painting; and they were in shadow, so it was difficult to figure out the true value variations. At one point — i’ll spare you the example — i had turned them, inadvertently, into deciduous trees. To then re-convert them into coniferous required some considerable rethinking. And my thinking about coniferous trees is pretty closely tied to my repeated experiences with Colorado evergreens, which are quite different. So — what i ended up with was perhaps a fantasy hybrid tree. I was tempted to relegate the painting to the trash heap, but resisted because there are several aspects of it that i quite like. As you consider the various iterations, it might make sense that it’s taken me longer than usual to present a post on this blog. Another interesting learning experience!