The Joy of Painting for People

The Joy of Painting for People

Late Afternoon, The Roman Forum25x30 cmOil on Linen© Kelly Medford, 2012What a complete joy it was creating these 2 paintings on commission! It’s taken me much longer than I had anticipated to finish them and I realized that I could have gone on indefinitely, always seeing something else to do, finish, touch, etc. I decided to leave them off here and let them rest and to let their rightful owners have them, finally.Now I realize the difference between studio painting and painting on location- I finished these in the studio, as I had their images throughly burned in my brain after having been on site time and time again, completing various studies, drawings, detailed sketches and memorizing the light I brought them back to the studio. This is the danger of the studio, it’s isolated and there wasn’t that limited time of the sun shifting beyond what would be considered workable conditions, so I was left to refine, refine, refine.Portico d’Ottavia25x30 cmOil on Linen© Kelly Medford, 2012So what there was to do was stop. Period. A new experience for me really, even though I have worked on paintings in the studio, I usually take them back to the spot where they were painted, if at all possible, to finish them and to make sure the light is right. Making these paintings was a complete joy, and I got to know myself and my style that much better. I even learned that I could obsess over a small painting for potentially forever.Luckily I have to leave, I am flying to the U.S. on Thursday to paint in a series of plein air events, which I am very excited about. If it weren’t for this, I could have gone on for who knows how long… and potentially killed the freshness of these paintings.