How much control do you keep in your paintings? Do you, on some paintings, let the painting paint itself and are you just a vessel to the painting?, or do you go about each and every painting with a goal in mind and you see the whole scene painted like you want it to be painted and do you push in that direction and don't stop till it's completed?
I see good in both approaches. There are both advantages and disadvantages to each approach. You just have to know when to pull your cards, or lay em down. That being said, there is no harm in learning your trait to it's fullest potential. Nor should you choose to not give each painting your full potential. Never leave anything inside a painting that you know is wrong, wrong.
When i'm painting and i see that something just doesn't work ( composition, perspective, value, brush, etc) I'm usually one to wipe it away and fix it with out going any further inside the image and get rid of it and start the area over. But i'm also one to sometimes let the painting speak for itself, let it go where it wants to go with in my guidelines.
Then there are times where i'm going out to get information, which is becoming more often, and I'm looking for critical information of how and why that tree looks so interesting, or keeping a mtn pushed back far enough in the distance but keeping it's proportion and it's dominance in the scene. Just getting down the power of a 10,000 ft peak and getting it's power to read as a powerhouse that you feel at the scene is harder to achieve that you think when you try to squeeze it down to a size of say an 8 inch by 10 inch panel. What do you put in, what do you leave out, how warm is the sun light hitting it, or how cool is the shadow areas on that distant mtn, all these elements have to read accurately in a study, so when your back inside your comfy studio you have something accurate that you can paint from. This is where these rudimentary studies have their greatness. There can be alot of power posessed inside that little painting that, when used accurately and with determination, will come out when you approach a larger piece inside the studio. That's when you start to hear the birds sing with in the painting. When you know and feel like your getting everything out of each brush mark you leave that you can. Paintings like this don't just happen, they are thought out and conceived hours, days, and even weeks in the making.
Although I get a lot more satisfaction out of those well conceived paintings that have consumed my time for hours of thought. I still sometimes like the freedom's that comes from just letting a painting flow by itself. Even though those types of paintings never really amount to much more than a fun and happless experience they are still worth noting and appreciated. The freedom with-in those paintings are what excite me about them. the freedom that is heard is relaxing to me. If it works in those types of paintings, it works for me. If i'm on a big project and needing to get a lot of accurate paintings done in a short period of time, those little freedom paintings get me started in the day, almost like a warm up exercise sure to grease all the joints and to get the blood flowing. You should try it sometimes!!
Happy painting!
