There are miles and miles of hiking and horseback riding trails that offer unlimited scenery and are rated "easy", "moderate", and "hard" (this is so that I, a novice hiker, won't wander onto the wrong path and wind up missing for days as I try to crawl back to civilization along a trail nicknamed "Death March").
The weather was spectacular and I thoroughly enjoy my hours in the woods. I even stopped to do a quick little painting, but the results were less than stellar (hence the phrase "epic fail" in the title).
I parked myself on the edge of a field, dragged out all my gear and went to work.
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| Here's what I saw. |
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| My set up. The pochade box is the one I made (instuctions here). |
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| A quick blocking out of the shapes. |
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| First lay in of color. |
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| After one hour. |
I set a deadline of one hour for myself because I have a tendency to pick at things and get too tight too soon. Choosing such a short time frame forces me to loosen up and cover more ground, faster.
But, after and hour I was very unhappy with what I had. In the distance I could see a couple of hikers coming up the trail, so rather than answer questions and try to justify a poor painting (not sure why I should care what they think, though), I just packed up and started back.
What went wrong? I think I had two main problems. I should have seen it then, but when you work outside you have to think on the fly and that is something that gets easier with practice.
Not enough value contrast : next time I will bring a medium that speeds drying. That way the colors will not sink into each other and I will be able to more easily show contrast.
Not enough color variation : green, green, and more green!! Yes, there really was a lot of green out there, but I should have used a little artistic license to change those colors and add interest and depth.
So that's my analysis. What do you think?
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