Ok, here goes. I am very far outside my comfort zone here, but am posting this to improve so please do comment.

For background, I started painting in December last year and have mainly followed tutorials, and have recently started attempting the monthly challenges that Edo and Jack post on their Facebook site, with varying degrees of success, one or two I’ve been really happy with!

The attached is my first attempt at painting outdoors and it reminded me of when I was learning to drive. There were so many things to think about that, lots of tasks vying for attention, and I would feel mild panic along with some degree of stress!

So, all the things that were going through my mind when I was painting this (in no particular order) were:

make sure you mix enough paint, pay attention to the values, oh heck the light changes quick, don’t dip your paintbrush in that, that’s tea, this is a sketch, keep it loose, vary the greens, don’t forget about soft edges (I did…), try and capture where the light hits the trees, make the trees in the dip cooler, try and connect all the big shapes… and probably loads more I’ve forgotten.

It all felt very rushed compared to painting indoors, and consequently I don’t think I remembered anything I’d practiced before in terms of the execution! Anyway, here it is. Hopefully it is the first of many, and painting en plein air will click with practice, just like driving eventually did.