Spring Means New Challenges

I've been entering a few competitions lately. Sometimes I get in, sometimes I don't. But each time I get a little more comfortable with the process. Though I have been working mainly in oils I decided to enter the National Society for Painters in Casein and Acrylic's annual juried show. Sent my CD with the digital image in yesterday. We'll see if anything comes of it.....

"What I Did On My Summer Vacation - Thumb Butte, AZ"   11x15  acrylic

Tip: When using acrylics, if you want to paint a large area of uniform color (like my sky, here) you will need to mix up a large amount before you begin to paint it. Acrylics dry so fast that if you mix as you go (like I usually do) you will wind up with spotty passages of color since it will be almost impossible to blend.

Time to get out of my rut!

Occasionally, I find myself falling into ruts. So sometimes I must take action to break out!

#1. I adore landscape and the natural format for that is a horizontal one. I find it hard to remember the last time I did a vertical. I will step out of that comfort zone and do a landscape painting, but use a vertical format.

#2. Most of my skies are in the medium to light value range. I have it stuck in my head that a dark sky means twilight or night. I will use a dark intense value scheme, but still try to convey that it is in full sun.

#3. I have a very difficult time conveying a feeling of size or "bigness" when working in a small format. So I will try to convey a feeling of something enormous, even though I am working on a small canvas.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out and feel like I have new "arrows in my quiver" when it comes to landscape painting.  What do you think?

"Monumental"  12x16  oil on canvas