Skaneateles Lake, View South, 9x12" en plein air

Skaneateles Lake-View South, pastel on board by Adriana Meiss

  Two weeks ago our plein air group had an invitation to paint at a lake front property on Skaneateles Lake. On arrival, I was tempted to paint the water and the distant hill in front of me, but there wasn't anything special about them: both areas seemed to have little color variation, and I have learned that unless there is something particular about what you want to paint, it is best to forget about it.

  After some checking I found an interesting composition involving part of the cottage, with a group of red Adirondack chairs in the distance as my focal area. The painting did not turn out the way I envisioned so I walked around looking for something else to paint. When I went to the shore the view south really captivated me and in a hurry, before the clouds were gone, I took my open box to a shaded spot and painted the pastel you see here. The scene could have been from any of the Finger Lakes because most of them, when seen to the north or south look like this, with several layers of hills as result from glaciation. I do feel lucky living in this area of NY!

Me painting, photo by Barbara Delmonico

Two from One

Queen's Lace Domain, 8x5"--SOLD
Very often I hold onto a bad painting hoping that someday I'll get the right idea on how to fix it. When an artist friend recently stopped by, I asked for her advice on one of those duds. Immediately she suggested to make two paintings out of it.

I think that part of the reason why it didn't cross my mind to do so in the first place must be because it would have felt like giving up on it, and I don't like to do that because that in turn, makes me realize that I made the mistake of jumping to paint a scene without sufficient thought, so I hold onto the idea of a solution, a fix.

Long Road, 8x6"
I didn't hesitate long to follow my friend's suggestion. After all, the time elapsed (3-4 years) had erased some of the feelings I had for the scene. And as a matter of fact, I didn't even look at the reference photo for new ideas.







The original painting: