Small Moments

Small Moments

Sometimes I look around and get overwhelmed, how to capture just one thing, one moment?In those moments I do something that may be counter intuitive: a quick small painting.Morning Road to Morgan Hill, California5×7″oil on linen panel©Kelly Medfordclick here for purchase details

This was painted in a long flat valley of just agricultural fields on the way to a place called Morgan Hill in California. I was driving and driving, thinking I would find “the perfect” painting, the one that was just waiting for me.Instead, as I have to remember over and over again, I choose and compose that perfect painting, it is rarely just there.I wanted to challenge myself with the effect of looking into the light instead of it being behind me or to one side. This is tricky. Firstly because it is not a pleasant experience looking into the sun (must wear a hat with a good brim and/or sunglasses) and also because the tones can be cooler, bluer and closer together than usual. But not always.That’s the trick: paint every painting as if it were new (which it is), without a formula or idea of I already know how to do this.Sounds easy, but is it really?Think about something that you do every day. Do we do those things half on auto pilot? Most likely.I often times shy away from this type of painting where I am looking into the light. Due to past failures of being able to capture the effect I got the idea that it is too hard.Silly me!Instead, like everything else, it just takes practice, lots of failures and the willingness to not know how to do something and see what you can invent in the moment.This was my little painting for this particular morning in California. What a place. I loved every moment of my time painting there.