Plein-air Painting

I have this book by James Gurney. He suggests not relying on photographs too much when painting, because they can only show a limited range of values - something that is bright will become pure white in the photo, and something that is dark will become pure black, even though it is not the truth. Beneath the text with that suggestion is a photo of his painting and the photograph of the subject of his painting. It's amazing, his painting looks so much more beautiful than the photo. I couldn't believe what a master he must be to paint like that.

But I went on a walk one day and brought paint and paper and even I was able to paint something more beautiful than the photo. Of course, I did take a bad photo, but he's right, when you're looking at something in person the colors you perceive are very different than in a photo, and when painting from a photo we tend to copy the colors from the photo too closely because we think it's reality.  When painting in person we can paint the impressions of light we get from the scene. 

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I'm not done, but I am satisfied with it so far. I used pencil watercolors.

Can you believe how much garbage there is in that thicket? Ugh!