My wife has told me I don't do enough small paintings. Her logic is that people who can't afford the paintings I do usually would be willing to pay for smaller paintings if I charge less for them. That makes sense. But she also thinks it's worth the trouble and the lesser price because they should take a lot less time to paint. I'm starting to find out that's not necessarily the case.
Today, I thought I'd take an hour or so from my day to paint a quickie scene, based, again, from reference photos I took during my recent vacation in the Smoky Mountains. I found a simple scene of a wire fence and wildflowers in Cades Cove. Still, despite my initial efforts to simplify the scene, I found myself tinkering with it for almost 2 1/2 hours. That's pretty much the same time I take to do my usual 11"x14" plein air oil paintings.
The main reason, though, it took so long to paint was that I was having a lot of fun with it. I did a plein air painting in my garden recently that wasn't turning out well and I wasn't enjoying the time I took doing it (which compounded the bad end result). It was a good feeling to have fun working on a painting again, and laying on thick texture and rich color.
I have a few small panels left in my studio and I should work on making some more small paintings. I should also try to limit my time to force myself to simplify my shapes and colors more. And, although I used a regular easel for this painting, it's a good time to utilize Ashton more, my homemade cigar box pochade that was created solely to do small paintings.
This is a 6"x6" oil on panel painted solely with painting knives.
