Popple River Plein Air- Oil Painting 5"x 7"

5"x 7" oil on panel (click on image to see larger)

Spent tonight painting off a bridge looking over the
Popple River not far from home here in NE Wisconsin,
finishing about 8:40pm...

My initial plans were to paint a 9"x 12" panel, but
then it began to thunder, and I anticipated some
rain to endure...and decided a smaller study would
have to do.

A county Sheriff stopped his car, rolled his window
down to ask me how long it takes to paint a painting
like I had. Was quite nice...wished me a nice weekend.

Started off bright...but then, turned threatening and
started sprinkling...and then decent light again. Sure
can try your concept or idea for the painting to have
such dramatic light changes, but is a good argument
for having a concept and not just slavishly copying
the scene. Such copying can really upset the painting
progress.

Here's the view I began with...quite bright..




















After squinting my eyes while setting up, I chose
to drive the palette with a split-complementary
color scheme. Bluish-green was my dominant
and red and orange my splits, plus white.