American Fork Canyon

Yesterday I left Provo to drive up American Fork Canyon in search of a scenic venue.  Though American Fork Canyon pretty crowded, I found a few good locations.  Painting outdoors is such a different feeling then painting in a studio (my room).  The scents, the sounds, and the people are all distracting, but by far the most difficult aspect was the sunlight.  If you can't find a nice shady spot, its really hard to mix colors properly, and even in the shade its difficult.  I learned a lot about painting outdoors from my two attempts.  First is that color mixing is really really really important.  Getting the correct colors is the most important thing when painting landscapes.  Second is you have to have loose, but planned brushstrokes.  You don't have time to dabble around on the same little area for a while, this means your brushstrokes have to be right the first time.  The final big lesson I learned is that when doing a landscape, so much of it is implied through color and brushstrokes, so its important not to try and paint every detail you see.  Regardless if you're subject is a tree or an entire mountain, the amount of detail included in the overall painting shouldn't change much.  keeping it simple yet well crafted is one of the difficult aspects of painting, especially in landscapes.  One of my favorite painters, Maynard Dixon, was very good at that (scroll about halfway down and look at "Snow Patch", one of my favorites).  So now here's a few pictures I took while on my adventure.  I'm still debating whether or not to post the paintings from it though.  So while I go lather up with aloe vera, enjoy some beautiful mountain scenery.  

Beautiful mountain meadow

Is there a better place to paint then by a roaring river?

This may be a future subject for a larger studio painting