Painting Atmosphere

This is an alla prima painting started and finished last night after dinner. I wish all paintings could be done alla prima. The trouble is too many times something comes up or something is going wrong or just not working. I can see why artists in the past would hibernate away in their studios away from the world while they painted. Getting your concentration broken while on a painting is the worst. I used to think painting took little concentration...just keep that brush moving. How wrong I was. Painting really fools you. Without thinking about it you become immersed in every little detail as they happen and each time someone walks in the door and asks a question or says "look at this" it breaks that concentration. Then they walk out and you lose that momentum and have to work at getting it back....about that time someone walks in again. We have a second refridgerator here in the studio and in summer someone was always walking in here to get a coke or something out of it. Do you know how loud it is when someone gets something out of the fridge? Well...when your into a painting and that fridge is 15 feet away it's deafening!! hahaha.

One could write a book on the things that annoy artists as they paint and man that would be one funny book....here are some of mine....
1. Questions regarding something so far out in left field it's amazing they asked at all.
2. The squeeking castors on my chair.
3. Cats prowling outside sounding like children
4. The howling of coyotoes in the field
5. The UPS guy slamming down a box next to the door.
6. Hearing the same repetitive commercials on the radio...I've got to move the controls closer to me since it is across the room.
7. And my favorite question of all...."whatcha doin?"....I could write a book on the many smart assed answers I have for that one alone....mowing the lawn, checking my transmission oil, doing math, figuring out how to achieve global peace, wood carving, tree trimming, using this brush to hold up the canvas, juggling, checking to see if this brush makes musical sounds if you wipe it across the canvas hard enough, excercising my left arm (only).....painting would naturally be my last answer, hahaha.

Anyway...this one was created using a picture of a painting I did a year ago as a reference. I sold the painting back then but I still have the image of it on the homepage of my website so I just pulled up my website and worked from that. I ventured off from the original a bit, most notibly in using a tinted ground of Indian Yellow. I've messed with that for skies on practice panels here in the studio and liked the results. I really like the effects you can get with your blues and clouds using the Indian Yellow underneath. Fun stuff.

Here is the halfway point into the painting. It was here that I really liked what was put down already and that gives you the boost to pursue to the finish. And here is the finished work.