"The Lost Mine", oil on panel, 8x10

I just bought quite a few small panels a week ago and decided to just paint and paint, not to worry about the outcome, as I truly believe that as a painter, my job is to become as good as I can possibly be.

When I started this painting at my friend Gloria's house, I thought I would do an abstract study from a photo I took at the Superstition Mountain. Using a big brush, I still came up with more detail than I intended to. But I was happy with the result and learned a lot during the process.

There are quite a few things I can say from doing this painting. First I found that the quality of paints really helps save time, energy and the resulting look of a painting. So, try to get better oil paints if you can. Second, look at the subject matter (if it's a photo), from far away, or in your computer file using a thumbnail view. It helps you decide if the composition is interesting enough to warrant the effort to paint. To me, the interesting composition involves good stretch of values, different masses and their distribution, lines and dots.

In the Desert Garden

Oil on panel, 8x10

I tried this particular subject three or four times with different tones and brush strokes and finally was satisfied with this one. I found that to express a sunny day, a painting needs to have a good stretch of values, from lightest light 7 to 9 on a scale of 10 to the darkest dark, 1 to 3. It is pretty logical in reality or in theory, because value, as well as color, is relative. In a cloudy day, even though the shadows should even be darker than in the sunny day, we don't have to paint them as dark, as long as the lightest light isn't as light.

I could be wrong. I'll keep painting to find out if I'm right on this.

For a painter like myself, color turns out to be quite a personal choice as long as one is mindful about the value in a painting. For example, I could make this painting "warmer" by either using more orange while painting, or, I can, when it's completely dried, glaze it with a warm color such as orange yellow or very light burnt siena.

I hope you like it.