The angular trees & shallow water are two of my favorite painting subjects at Burchfield Art & Nature Center. I was the Niagara Frontier Plein Air Painters host there last month, but was distracted by a variety of impending responsibilities when it came time to choose a subject. I knew that the open paths & misty morning distance would make great subjects, but they weren't fitting into my temporary melancholia. I settled close to a big patch of daffs & drew until I became intrigued by this composition & started to paint it. However, the mood prevailed & I transported a dull unfinished plein air in the car while I ran errands & completed tasks. The next week, I reviewed the sad drying painting & pulled it onto my easel in the studio. Fresh eyes saw potential & I reworked the flowers, enlarging the petals, adding distance & additional flowers & stems until I was satisfied. It took a lot longer than I expected & nothing of the original plein air remains-except the memory. It would have been easy to overwork it.Our spring was pretty, that day was lovely, & these are the only daffodils still around. The moral of the story is that it isn't always easy to paint, even when I want to. Lucky me, this moody nonsense rarely happens.
Late Yellow Daffodils, oil 14x11 2009
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