So here is today’s painting–an 11 x 14 on UART 500.  I’ve filmed it as it was completed outside. I will no doubt make changes to it as it is pretty dark. I was in full light and what looked bright to me in the sun doesn’t read like light in the house. For this reason, I never consider a plein air painting complete until I’ve looked at it inside.  However, I don’t want to make too many changes. I want to preserve as much of the freshness as possible.  In this post, I want to talk about what I look for when choosing subject matter.  Today, I really didn’t think I was going to find anything!  Not until I went over a small bridge and looked back at the lake, did I see the potential in this scene. What it had for me were the following: 1) diagonal lines, along with a strong horizontal in the background and the vertical of the tree; 2) interesting shapes created by the foliage and reflections, and  3) strong value differences between the land and the water.  When painting in summer on the East Coast, we have to find anything that will create value differences.  Those in the West often have lovely mountains and vistas that are more distinct. Here it’s one huge mass of green and pretty boring!!!  Color is almost always blues, greens, and browns.  I try to vary this by doing underpaintings in warm colors, adding violets, etc. But I rarely look for color first. As to color approach, I also tend to use observed color, since that’s a primary reason for painting on location. In this painting, note that the water at the bottom looks different from that above it. Because it is reflecting the sky above, it is a little cooler but it was also very shallow and the warm orangey dirt underneath was showing through. So I used a more violet blue along with a light orange.  Some tips on choosing subject matter: 1) look for simple subjects with strong shapes and values; 2) feel free to omit or move but be very careful adding anything that isn’t there; 3) don’t do subjects that are too complicated (e.g., street scenes), unless you are really comfortable with them.  I don’t do buildings as much outside as I do in the studio, and when I do them I try to simplify them. Getting the perspective right in a row of buildings can be really hard when outside. In this painting, I changed the background in order to introduce a section of sky and I left out buildings and docks that were on the far shore.  I hope this has been helpful. With the beginning of summer, I know that a lot of you will be painting outside and thought I’d share my journey with you.