Back To Landscapes

I continue to encounter all types of different issues when I try to paint a landscape. Rather than shying away, I'm feeling stubborn. My goal is to focus on landscapes for the rest of June from which I hope to gain some additional skills or ways to think about or approach a landscape painting.

This seems like a reasonable response given painting #228. I got lost while trying to do this painting. In spite of adding a 4 x 4 grid to the picture and to the painting surface, I managed to goof up the depth of things, so I decided not to finish it. This feels like a different chapter in the same book. When things like this happen, it's frustrating, but at least I can work to improve on things I'm aware of. There are many other problems with this, but messing up the depth of things was the biggest. I also think this was an issue when I went out painting plein air over Memorial Day weekend.

#229 - Minnehaha Creek - 8" x 10" - paper - not completed

In that vein, here is a painting from a smaller cropping of the same picture of Minnehaha Creek.

#230 - Minnehaha Creek - 8" x 8" - paper

I didn't sweat getting the color of the water accurate, but I did struggle with trying to figure out where the water was cooler in tone and warmer in tone. It seemed to be cooler in the light and warmer in the shadowed areas, which does not make sense to me. Given that and that I don't trust my eyes in making these distinctions, I want to keep thinking about the cool or warmth in the things I see.