Improve Your Painting -The Value of the Small Sketch - part 2

Working small ... 3"x5" offers a lot of benefit to your development as an artist and thinker.
First, they get a lot done in a short time..They also usually wind up set aside and eventually rediscovered as nice little paintings - real examples of your true handwriting...

gouache study

gouache study

gouache study - Maryland

gouache study - Inlet Chester River - Maryland

oil study - Vermont

gouache study - Spain

Improve your darwing and painting - the value of the small sketch

I can't stress enough the value of working up a small sketch (thumbnail size 1.5 inch by 2 inch or more) in order to develop better paintings... even when you are working from life or outdoors Plein Air style.
Working small freely enables you to think about the very basic composition re: lights and darks, shapes and placement of major forms.  That is what was taught 'Old School'. Just using a 2B pencil or simple black wash you build a visual fluidity and eventually a rapid understanding of exactly what you are looking at.
Somebody said once "The sketch promises everything and delivers nothing "--- not so fast - It delivers plenty.

Here are a few small thumbnails by Mucha done on toned paper with a little pastel for some of his murals

These were done as background studies for a sci fi TV film proposal for a Hasbro toy

The next step is to bring up your idea to a more detailed small painting -about 3" x 6" - to work out the color and discover how much you don't know about your subject...i.e. more studies..definitely Old School

Painting in Yellowstone Park - Transendent Experience

Ken Burns' inspiring series now on Public Television brought back with amazing clarity my first experience with the national park system.  I drove across the country from New Jersey to California in a '50 Buick 4 door and slept in the back seat at truck stops serenaded by cattle carriers and revving Mack's and Peterbuilt's.  Burns speaks of having a transcendent experience upon a first viewing..indeed.  I spent the night outside the gate to the Grand Canyon south rim and entered at the early morning opening in time time to see the sunrise across the canyon.  The cool air chilled the body and etched the image forever.  I promised to return not knowing when.  I was still in college and had not yet decided to go on to study painting and illustration at the Art Center School as it was known at the time... now The Art Center College of Design.
The next experience was similarly sleepless in a parking lot near Artists' Point in the Yellowstone accompanied by my wife and an acrobatic Great Pyrenees with paws the size of catcher's mitts. Every animal sound within ear shot was translated into a trampling leap from front to side to back of the Econoline van which served as house and home for the trip. Finally at sunrise we wandered down the path to the lookout and watched the most incredible display of light crawl down the canyon walls warming both body and soul with sulfur yellows, crimsons and deep purples.  Again, I vowed to return to paint this time as I had graduated from the ACS some years before. 

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone - 30 x 40 oil

Shoshone River Canyon- oil

Canyon Pools - plein air gouache - 3" x 5"