Nocturne....Night Trail

"Night Trail"

12"x16"

 Oil on canvas covered panel

I painted this scene about 5 or 6 years ago on a smaller canvas and decided to do a larger version. I didn't want to do a copy of my other painting becasue there were things I wanted to try out differently on this one. The nice thing about painting is over the years you get better at it so there were changes I made the included these. I really liked the original but when you look back at paintings you see things you wish you could change....so why not do another painting huh !? I'm glad I did this one. I like the larger size and I like my changes. One of these days when I get much better at nocturnes I'll do a really large one. Years ago I saw a nocturne show up in Los Olivos, CA and they had some very large pieces that were just awesome. Many, many years ago, Charles Rollo Peters painted a nocturne of our local mission here in Santa Ynez....maybe I'll give it a try on large scale....we'll see.      

Carneros Finish

Well I finally got around to finishing and photographing the Los Carneros painting. In the first image you will see the point at which I stopped on location. At this point there was enough there to just have to dial in smaller bits to finish it up. I looked at the grasses area as the base for what I would do to it once I was back in the studio. The image is slighty different because I snapped this pic as it was on the easel out there.

In the final version you can see the slight alterations to the trees and then the additional grass work. Not bad for a little over an hours work stannding in the shade of a tree that was probably over a hundred years old....now how many artists do you think stood right where I was painting the same scene in that shade before I was even born???