Mowing study

In July I took a weeklong workshop at Arrowmont Arts and Crafts School in Gatlinburg, TN with the pastel artist Susan Ogilvie. It was an amazing week and I'm trying to apply what I've learned.
Of all the things I learned, composition and thumbnail sketches have impacted my ideas the most. 
Yes, everyone knows we're suppose to create thumbnail sketches to study the images for value and composition, but very few of us do it.
Here's the black and white thumbnail I created to study the elements.

black and white study from Shaker Village fields

The cloud section of this painting was created as a plein air piece at Shaker Village this month, but the bottom of the plein air didn't work well. I rubbed out that portion. Then after studying a photograph that I took at Shaker Village the year before, I combined the two images and created "Mowing 2". Confused? 

Well, that's another thing I learned in the workshop - combine images to create a better composition. I plan on talking more about these things in upcoming blogs.

"Mowing 1" 16"x12" pastel on dark gray  PastelMat

This is another image from the thumbnail study.

                           

"Mowing 2" 12"x16" pastel on textured sanded paper