Lately, I have been making a more conscious effort to try to do some sort of study prior to executing a painting in the studio.  In the past, I have been notorious for wanting to just jump in and paint.  Some of this avoidance is due to being lazy and some of it is due to my experience with plein air where you do not have much time to do studies prior to executing a painting.  The sunlight is just too fleeting and I feel I am not quite experienced enough yet to be able to fill in the painting with what I may have seen 20 minutes prior.

However, I do truly feel that some sort of study is of some value, in especially nailing down a composition and your main value shapes.  A thumbnail will usually work for this and does not need to be fussy or detailed in any way.  In fact, it could even be a 2 or 3 value notan study.  Other studies that have been taught to me when I was going through the Virtual Art Academy are value or grey-scale studies and color studies.   These studies can be smaller and do not need to be detailed since they really should be focused on the big shapes in the painting and setting a color scheme in the case of doing a color study.

In this particular scene from my backpacking trip to the Sangre De Cristo mountains in Colorado, I decided to go through the process of several studies.  I wanted to try to capture the value and temperature change that was occurring as we were coming through an area of the trail that was in shadow into an area ahead that was in full sunlight.  Prior to executing this painting, I did a quick thumbnail to establish the composition and values since the photo was not quite right.  I wanted to add some trees on the left to counter the weight of the trees on the right.  Once I had the thumbnail done, I moved into a grey-scale study and two color studies done on Arches oil paper.  I kept each of these studies to around 5x4 inches each.  Once I felt I had a direction, I jumped into the final 9x12 painting.

So here is the thing to consider which is also the basis of the title of this post.  I usually have a pretty loose and intuitive approach to my painting, especially when I just dive right into painting.  I find that when doing multiple studies and iterations of the concept, I am not quite so free when I get to the final painting.  Why is this?  I am not sure but I am interested to see if the studies will be an asset or a hindrance as I continue to use them for the immediate future.  Feel free to share your thoughts on this or the painting.