New Plein Air Painting: Stone Bridge, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

It was long over due, after ten years of living in this city I finally made it over to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, and what a place it is! I waited too long, most of the flowers had already bloomed and gone, but even so, the different gardens were great. There were few spots I loved and I will have to go back before it gets too cold. 

Time was flying and I had to set up quickly, to my luck, I found this stone bridge while walking a path. This bridge was very nondescript while walking through it, but soon as you stepped off the path and walked around you got to see it's structure hovering above a little stream. Something about it said "paint me, paint me!", and usually I go with my gut, this spot was a no brainer.

By setting up on this spot I took on a number of challenges. The first challenge was time, I was off to a late start and not only did I have to try to work fast before I lost all light, but I also had plans right after. This was enough to make me work fast! 

The second challenge was dealing with the light. There were moments when the sun was shining bright, and then at times clouds would roll in. To those who don't paint this may not seem like a big deal, but to plein air painters it is, because the amount of light and it's direction changes the colors of the setting. You can spend a whole day adjusting the colors according to the shifting light, but that is not working smart. Choices need to be made from the start to make things easier, and so I chose to paint the golden bright light and focus around that choice. 

The third challenge was how to deal with so much green. It has been said in the recent past that I paint too bright, that perhaps I should tone down my colors. I have always wondered why since I think my perception of color might not be too far off from what others see, but I know in all honesty this is not the case.  While starting this painting I decided I was not going to hold back and I was going to paint what I saw and if brightness is what I see and what I feel, then so be it. Also, it helped that one of my favorite painters recently published a blog post about this matter, and his take on it, not to mention his amazing work, was enough to make me keep working with a brighter palette. 

Stone Bridge, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, 2014, oil on linen, 10 x 12 inches

The finished painting is this explosion of greens and foliage. I will leave you with this quote from Marc Dalessio, the painter I mentioned above:
"First off, I should mention that there are many people whose opinions I highly respect that think my greens are terrible. Acidic, garish, too bright, too yellow, etc… That said, I try to honestly paint what I see and I like my greens. I was always partial to the story of John Constable who, when painting at a time when artists would cover their finished paintings with brown violin varnish to make them look Old Mastery, took a violin and laid it on the bright green grass to show the difference between the accepted pictorial norms of his contemporary artists and the colors of real life." 

Enough said.