Painting BIGGER

[caption id="attachment_302" align="aligncenter" width="287" caption="Artist Ann Rea"]Artist Ann Rea[/caption] For many years I only painted small field studies in oils.  There’s limited time available to complete a field study so consequently the canvases are small.  And so for years I believed that I could only paint in a small scale if I wanted to preserve the immediacy of my subject.  How did I get this rule stuck in my head?  I really don’t know but it was stuck.  And a large blank canvas was very intimidating. Then for a over a year my fiancé would press me and say, “I think you should paint bigger.”  And I would say, “Who’s the artist here?”  But he was right.  And I’m committing this to writing so that he can print it out and revel in the fact that I said, “Honey, you were right!” One day I just dared myself to do what Monet did. I selected a subject painted in and of the natural environment and inspired by the ambient light.  Then I brought it into my San Francisco beach studio and reinterpreted and refined it on a larger scale.  Wala!  It worked.  I loved the results. I knew what to do all along.  I just had to get out of my own way and challenge what I perceived to be my limitations. Now I’m running out of space.  My beautiful but intimate studio is crowded with canvases and supplies.  But as I sell more and more large-scale canvases I’ll be opening my own studio and art gallery.
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