With this painting I took on the challenge of a visually dense, busy scene in the foliage of some of the trees and plants at the Ballard Locks. I also took my new field easel out for a spin to start this piece with plein aire painting.
Scenes with a lot going on visually are difficult because you have to find ways to simplify things for your painting or else get bogged down in rendering all the detail, which is slow and also puts you at greater risk of getting lost in your treatment of level of detail, values, and colors.
Definitely hit the “ugly phase” with this one after the one hour done on site. But I think I managed to address a lot of the issues when I came back to the painting another day, back at home, and feel pretty good about it, especially how the dark leaves and flowers warmly overhang the front plane of the painting.
Cool to see your process!
I love that you share the process of going through the "ugly stage" to get to the final painting, which is lovely.