Carolina Marsh

"Carolina Marsh" 16x20 oil on linen

This is a photo -- taken quickly -- of a painting I completed this weekend. I wanted to do a southern theme, and this scene of a marsh fit nicely. I believe this is my first painting where the sky was the primary subject! It came together fairly nicely. Once again I painted the entire surface yesterday. And then this morning, while the paint was still wet, I came back and softened some edges and unified some shapes. I'm starting to love this two-day process. When applying paint the first day, as usual, I get so excited that I use too much paint and too much color. Then on the second day, after I've calmed down, I can see what needs to be done to give the painting more structure and less chaos, i.e not quite so much emotion from me. After I'm done there's still plenty of emotion but also a bit more depth and what I like to call "presence".

For this scene I used a few reference photos taken years ago for some ideas but then ended up inventing the details - or lack thereof, actually.