Different Stroke Painting of the Week - Farm

'Farm' 8" x 10" Chroma Atelier Interactive acrylics
For the current DSDF challenge.

"Put the brush down, and step away from the painting!" - that's one of my favorite sayings, but rarely do I remember to listen to it! Painting is hard. Period... Pastels are much easier for me.

I decided to use some of the leftover Chroma paints which I saved from the workshop a week ago. They were inside a covered plastic container and still in good shape. I'm still not sold on the paint, but I can't really say its the brand. Its just that I am so rusty working with paint. If I would have had some of the extra mediums which were sampled at the workshop (to slow drying, thicken, etc.), I might have been happier. I don't want to buy any until I decide that I'd like to work in paint more. I have a dozen or so tubes of regular acrylics, so not sure the Chroma would be a good investment until I get more practice with acrylics in general.

I started this painting last night, and wasn't having much luck, so turned off the light. Later, I peeked in and it looked like it had promise. So this morning I went back to work on it. I was still struggling with finding the right brush and tried a palette knife, trying to figure out how to apply the paint. Should be such a basic step, right? Perhaps I was really wanting a thicker application, but I didn't have a thickening medium. - Excuses, excuses....

I kept working on it and decided enough was enough and was just going to quit on it, and perhaps do one in pastel instead. After I returned to the studio from cleanup, it looked pretty good from a distance! I think I might have captured the sunlit sky hitting the rooftops. To me, it looks like a very bright day, with deep shadows formed from high full clouds blocking out some of the fields.

I need to remember to step back and look at my paintings from afar. Too many times, I get so knit-picky, working too closely.