Santa Ynez Ridge Scene

Late Poppies on the Ridge

12"x16" Oil on panel

Thought I'd try some more rock fun. I still think mine never turn out as good as most other painters' rocks. I have seen some rocks that I just drool over. I really think it is a mental thing when there is something you paint and you can never seem to see it as being ok. I tried to keep my edges soft so the rocks don't appear to look like Colorform rocks, in other words, having that pasted on look. When the edges of rocks are too sharp they look as if they were cut out of a magazine and glued onto your canvas. Another thing I tried to do with these rocks was not to mess with them too much. I've done rocks in the past where I tweaked them nonstop for 2 days because they didn't appear right to me. I put down my shadowed areas of the rocks and then just added the highlights and blended lightly for a very short time. I think my downfall in the past with rocks was just repainting them over and over...never being satisfied with the rock appearance.
Well, enough about my rocks because I could whine and whine all day about them.