Oil Painting - Who Needs a Reference Image?

"Driving Into Autumn"

Krys Pettit

Oil on Canvas

 8" x 10"

I have worked from my own images for decades. I have stacks of reference photos.  Files of digital images.  Books with painting ideas.  Sometimes is a just too much for my creative brain and I want to just paint. 

Artists rely on memory more than we care to admit. All those years of sitting in the car observing while my husband drove gave me a memory palace better than any photo file. "Driving Into Autumn" took about 90 minutes to do. Loose, impressionistic and fresh. It's that scene in the mountains in October I am looking forward to seeing which exists only in my mind.

Below some images of the progression of the piece:

Ready to paint after putting in some basic shapes and colors. Cotton candy colored sky not my fav.

Adding some darker colors in the middle and lots of orange and green for trees

Loving how the orange, green and red hint at fall leaves turning in the distance

Starting the finesse the mountains in the distance with cool lavender, blues and greens. Add more color to the sky for a mood -- sunrise or sunset?

Suggested more variation in the mountains in the distance, pumped up the sky a bit and added some colors in the foreground. 

And that's a good day in the studio.

Visit my website for a sampling of my work and custom house portraiture:

https://www.kryspettit.com

Wild Oats and Billy Goats is a great, eclectic fine art and craft gallery in Decatur, GA and I am thrilled be a part of their tribe:

https://wildoatsandbillygoats.com/collections/krys-pettit

Etsy is a great marketplace for fine art and craft and I have had my store there for a number of years.  You'll find prints and my medium-sized oils, acrylic and watercolors.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/KrysPettitArtwork

Looking for art to fill your home and within budget?  I regularly put out studies, smaller works, and older pieces for auction at my eBay store.  It's fun to bid and win and I keep the work varied and fresh:

https://www.ebay.com/str/kryspettitartist

Bittersweet Autumn

"Pumpkins on a Hill" Andrew Wyeth

"Church at Old Lyme" Childe Hassam

"Church in Eastham" Edward Hopper

"Pumpkin Patch" Winslow Homer

"Pumpkin Head Self-Portrait" Jaime Wyeth

I love the season of Autumn and although I reside in Florida I spent many years in awe of the colors that enliven the landscapes north of the Sunshine State.  To me, Maine seems a state that that was created for colorful months between summer and winter.  I did a bit of research on some of my favorite Maine artists and their interpretations of Autumn.  It's a jewel of a season and it graces only certain locations in our magnificent country.  I wish I had more time to embrace Autumn and have but a few of my own paintings that celebrate the season, like the one below.  It passes so quickly and you have to grasp the beauty when it presents itself to you.

"Fall in Tioga County"
Krys Pettit
Oil on canvas panel 

Carl Sandburg, the poet, said it perfectly.
"I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts."