Quality = Quantity

Hi all.

I was reading this article today: Quantity is priority. Though it's on some kind of corporate marketing site, I'm in strong agreement with the author. I feel it applies to landscape painting 100%.

 "Near Evening" Size 8x10 by M Francis McCarthy

With each year that I've been painting here in New Zealand I've striven to increase the amount of actual paintings that I create. While there are some artists that feel they need to ruminate and procrastinate to accomplish that masterpiece. The truth is, odds are going to dramatically increase if you are painting all the time. There is no substitute for experience.

Here's a question for you. Who is likely to be the better painter: the person who reads 200 books and does one painting, or will it be the artist who reads a few books and does 200 paintings. We all know the answer to that is going to be pretty obvious.

 "Near Evening" Size 5x7 by M Francis McCarthy

I know that I harp on working hard quite a lot here. And hey, this article gave me another excuse to talk about working hard at painting. Experience is the best teacher and if you want to paint very well, it is the only teacher that will get you there.

Cheers,

A bit about "Near Evening". Both the 5x7 and 8x10 versions of this motif were done last month. This is a very "New Zealand" type of scene with the Tea Tree featured prominently in the foreground. It's not often that I paint trees like this but my confidence in handling more wispy types of trees has increased. I'm happy with both versions.

For the 8x10 I used a technique whereby I removed excess paint from the tree trunks by painting in the sky, letting it dry, then panting my tree over the top. I then used apiece of paper to blot up the excess paint. This gave the nice subdued effect that I was after.