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

Change and Upheaval

No more palm trees in my yard -- spectacular hardwoods and rolling hills  now surround me

Relocation has its own particular stress. A positive exciting time, new places, new opportunities, beautiful topography and a wonderful, dare I say, perfect house.  Such was my artistic life for the last 6 months. Rather than creating art I spent my months packing a house and unpacking a house. I found myself keeping company with  200 plus Uhaul boxes.  Bubble wrap -- certainly enough bubble wrap to encircle the globe at least once.  Rolls and rolls of packing tape.   I hate packing tape but I grew fond of the clear stuff vs the brown stuff as the months went on.

After decades in a warm, tropical climate we realized we had enough of paradise. Or at least paradise as tourists and developers imagined it. So we searched for 3 yrs and found a location that was right and comfortable for our life style. Quiet, surrounded by woods, mountains, lakes, and some darn good wineries.  All the details fell into place over a short period of time.  No worries -- I can pack and coordinate the moving of 2 home offices and an entire house.  Let's just say it all worked out wonderful but stress eating (and occasional day drinking) resulted in a comfy extra 10 pounds.

And now I am here. After 6 months of adjustment I am finally finding my way back to healthy eating and creating art.  

I am fortunate to have a spectacular location, quiet and with great opportunities to show my work in the region. More than that I have two spaces to work in -- a designated area for office cum watercolor studio and a room in a basement of oil and acrylic work where I don't need to worry about whether the paint dripped on the floor.

New work is slowly taking shape - looser, better composed, plus exploring some new methods.  I'm inspired by the local landscape as the seasons make themselves know but am also revisiting old memories that end up on canvas and paper.  

"Late Afternoon Glow" © Krys Pettit, watercolor on gessoed paper, 11"Hx15"W

"Red Bud Season" © Krys Pettit, watercolor on paper, 15"Hx11"W

I have been lucky to become part of a local art coop where I can show my work and was thrilled to be accepted in a state-wide exhibit showing in late summer/fall.

More than anything I am grateful. Grateful to have the means to be in a new location, to be excited by new places and opportunities and to have my life as an artist.  It is, indeed, all good.

Visit my website to see more of my work

https://www.kryspettit.com/

Follow me on Instagram to see work in progress, what inspires me to paint, and the most current examples of my artwork:

kryspettitartwork