Reflections of an Artist

      How does an artist decide what to paint? What are the things to consider when making that decision? I am not sure what motivates other artists but I have two criteria. First, I look for a great composition and second, mood.

      In the last five years, I have been lucky to be juried into several plein air events that have greatly influenced my work. Whether a foggy coastline or a warm sunset, the paintings that receive the most attention and acclaim have one thing in common. They have atmosphere. The viewer reacts to the painting in a personal way and is transported to a specific time and place. This intimacy is what I try to achieve in my paintings. I happened to uncover a little trick to this at a plein air event and would like to share my discovery.

      One foggy morning during the Carmel Art Festival, I stumbled upon ten or more artists painting at a favorite seaside spot. I walked over and introduced myself and was thrilled that among the group where a few artists who's work I admire. I noticed that several of the well-known artists (the ones I admired) where not painting the cliffs close to them but instead painting the scene off in the distance. This had some very interesting results. First, the perspective was at eye level, not looking down, and second the distance created automatic atmosphere. It was an Aha! moment.

Let me show you how this happens by using photos I recently took at a paint out last week. Below is the entire view of the scene I decided to paint. I am looking down the coast into the sun at the homes along the California coast from a nearby cliff.

You are probably thinking, not very inspiring. Right? Well, I saw something there in the distance that I thought would work. See the cypress trees on the ocean's edge and the distant hazy trees? That is what I decided to paint and here is the image zoomed in on my final composition.

What a difference. Zooming in on that distant focal point of cypress trees made the scene more intimate, produced mood, created a lovely composition, and changed the perspective from one looking down at the ocean from a dizzying height, to one looking across at the ocean at eye level. Every one of these adjustments improved the original scene. There is an additional side effect to this process. Because the scene is so far in the distance, I was not able to see all those details. This reduced a very complicated composition to simple shapes and allowed me to paint the "mood" of the scene and not get overwhelmed with details. See my final painting called Beachfront. I'll post more about this painting in my next blog and talk about how I edited things to improve my painting.