Outside My Studio Door

I only worked 1/2 day today....TGIF!  The backyard was bathed in beautiful summer sunlight when I got home and I had a strong urge to get out the paints.  I had been thinking about how to apply Dan Edmondson's lessons and techniques to my own subject matter, so this was a great time to try it out.  I set up my EasyL just a couple of feet outside my Studio door.  I had recently purchased two wine barrel halves and set them up to soften some ugly concrete that had once been the location of a spa and gazebo.  The combination of the mild summer and the potting soil mix that I used to plant some flowers produced runaway growth, and now, just about three weeks after planting, the little ground cover flowers are blooming their hearts out and the central plant in each barrel is growing like a weed.

This is a small 9 x 12 canvas panel.  Painting time, about 1 1/2 - 2 hours.  I'd like to come back after things are set up a bit and work on shadows as well as adding a bit more detail here and there.  I'm also thinking about lightening the foreground, including the nearest barrel and plants in order to get more of a feeling of intense sunlight sweeping over everything.  I'll think about it a little more for a couple of days.  All in all, I felt OK.  I followed Dan's processes.  I worked from back to front, finishing each item in the painting pretty completely before moving on to the next.  I used no OMS at all...a little walnut oil being my only medium.  Almost all of the paint is straight from the tube...by that I mean, mixed with other colors, but no medium at all.  The exception is the background and the brighter leaves where medium was necessary to get the paint to flow over the layers of wet paint already there. I also concentrated on trying to get the paint down right the first time. Over the years, I've developed habit of putting paint down and then 'correcting' it by coming back again and again to adjust color and value. I'm trying now to get it right the first time.  When I'm successful at that, the colors seem much cleaner and fresher.

Outside My Studio Door  Oil on 9 x 12 canvas panel

UPDATE:  This is the painting today including some of the changes that I mentioned in the original post above.  I tried primarily to intensify the light in the foreground.  I added more detail to the front barrel, including more carefully developed metal bands.  I cooled down the shadows for the same reason.  I also added a bit more light to the closest grouping of leaves in the back barrel.  I think the changes helped a lot.  I'll call this one the completed painting.