Painting in the Wild vs the Studio

This new computer stuff is just taking up alot of time that I could be doing other things.  I visited the Apple Store yesterday and asked a few questions about the iphoto thing.  The wacky salesman, yes he was wacky and all over the place..very upbeat, high energy guy, went to a computer station and tried a few things.  He said he really wasn’t that informed about specifics with iphoto.  I watched in rapt awe as he brought up a photo and per my thoughts, resized it.  Amazing.

At the time of purchase our sales person asked if we wanted to add lessons.  I didn’t think it would be something I’d have time for so we opted out.  Of course, Son #2 has it all down already. Kids!  Now I’m thinking maybe lessons would have been a good idea.  But when?  I’ve got enough on my plate as it is, but then, if I knew what I was doing all this wouldn’t take all the time I do have.

It’s a dilemma.

I came home and tried to copy what the high energy crazy salesman did in the store and I did figure it out.  It just took me a while.  So maybe that’s what it will take, a while.

Later on I visited the watercolor of the hydrangea on my desk and got to work on it.  I don’t know how I feel about it.  Painting from life at the beach is so different from painting in the studio.  I think I like the life painting better.  I can’t be sure what it is about the out-of-studio painting.  It could be that I’m outside.  It could be that I’m working live and don’t have all day so I have to be quick. Maybe it’s that working from life leaves out the possibility of going into too much detail.  If I work from my photographs I see too much detail and paint too tight.  Working in the ‘wild’ I paint more freely, only adding enough detail to tell the story.  We’ve been down this road before, I know, I know.

Maybe it’s good to have different styles of painting?  Maybe I should just paint and keep quiet?

If I find that I’m really a plein air painter, winter is going to be a tough time!  I can’t even think about it from now.  Back to the easel!

Share Button

Author: Dora Sislian Themelis

As a fine artist, I paint, knit, and make jewelry, to figure it all out.

2 thoughts on “Painting in the Wild vs the Studio”

  1. I see we have the same problem with trying to loosen up with our painting! I agree, sometimes loose- sometimes detailed.

    As for the iphoto, you will LOVE it when you get used to it. You can even do quite a bit of editing with it. I mostly use photoshop elements for my main editing, but it is good to get the prelims done in iphoto when you import the photos.
    Sheryl

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.