I love painting outside but it becomes difficult when you only have so much time with the sun in one spot. I chose to use a smaller canvas panel because it is easier to quickly paint in the important shapes and colors.

I stopped at a spot by the river and set up to paint with only an hour before the sun went down. It was good practice to only have a limited amount of time to paint because I was forced to quickly lay in the shapes and colors I was seeing.

I chose an interesting view to paint because across the river was a small rocky mountain that had a bright warm lighting and the foreground was much darker and cool looking. It was interesting to see the space created by the warm cool contrast. If I had a little more time with this I might have payed more attention to the fence because it looks a little unfinished; and it seems to blend in with the river behind it.

Oil on canvas panel.

I thought that the telephone was an interesting contrast with the landscape but I really want to try just doing a view simple landscapes so I can focus on laying in more of natures colors. I definitely learned a lot from this painting and hope to continue with landscapes for the next couple days.