Hmmm...I think this is backwards.

I've painted hundreds of plein air pieces. Some much more successful than others. One thing I, and many other artists, do is to use the plein air painting as reference and inspiration for a larger studio painting. I have found that it helps to do this quickly after painting the original outdoor piece so that the excitement and freshness carry over into the studio work.

Normally I will paint a larger piece from the original, but this time I have reversed the process. This past weekend I painted near a cliff face in very windy conditions. And I really like the finished plein air work. BUT, I was wanting to paint larger than the standard 16" x 20" that I normally use, so I used a 24" x 18" wooden panel previously used with canvas glued to one side. I ripped the canvas off the board and took part of the laminate with it. So I flipped it over and painted on the rougher backside. Not only was it more rough, but it also had a defect, sort of a split, in the wooden surface. I had primed over everything a couple of years ago when I first used it, so it was okay to paint on just not smooth or pretty to look at.

I like my effort, and would have probably just worked on it more in the studio to bring it to a nice level of finish, and to make it a good painting. That is the ultimate goal, eh? But that split messed it up. So now, I have started a 20" x 16" of the same scene. Going smaller than the original. There are other things I need to work on in this version also. For one is the island in the lake below the cliff. In the original it gets lost and confused in the branches of the tree. I need to clarify this. In fact, I'm contemplating having the cliff overlook land and not the lake for this version.

So there you are. My plans for this little project. Who know how it will turn out. But at least I have a blurry roadmap to find my way. I have started a block in of the smaller painting which I'm showing here along with the original.