Leo Carrillo

Leo Carrillo Sunlight 8x10 oil on board

One of my favorite art bloggers and artists is Qiang Huang at http://qiang-huang.blogspot.com/ , partly because he's so cheerful and sincere in his struggles. But reading about his working style makes me aware of how unusual it is for me to finish a painting in one day. It's partly that I rarely find a landscape with a perfect composition and have had a hard time making one with still life. (Maybe the problem is the word "still"! I realize it sounds dead to me, but Qiang's are not dead! or check out http://carolmarine.blogspot.com/ ) I always have to alter the empasis in my landscapes to makea pleasing composition and it takes me hours or days to see what's needed, to give up the prettiness in some areas so they don't distract from the main attraction. For you non artists, any area with a strong light/dark contrast or bright color will first grab attention, also small detailed shapes and wiggly lines. It doesn't matter if "that's how it really looked."  It's easier for me to sacrifice what was really there when I'm no longer looking at it and I've had a few hours or days to enjoy the magic of having captured it.

This ocean scene was nearly finished on the spot, but later I changed the large shapes of the rocks to simplify them, exaggerate the diagonals, not distract from the water. Now that I look at it there are too many masses the same size, see what I mean?