How I plan and paint a landscape

Today, I’m trying something new. Not so much the painting I’ll be creating, but a new (at least to me) way of showing people what I do for a living. Over the next several days I’ll be working on a new painting, and you can follow along and see all the steps I take to plan and paint a landscape.

I’ve started on a new painting today, using photographs that were taken on my recent trip out west- a very enjoyable and wonderful trip! So far, I’ve formed the painting in my head, and gathered together the photographs to use as reference material in working on the painting.

From the above assortment, I certainly can pick elements from one photo and combine it with elements of another photo or photos and imagine the completed work in my head- but that doesn’t allow YOU to see that process, does it?
This is something like what I see in my imagination:

I’ll be stretching it out horizontally somewhat- my canvas is a wide rectangle- and probably adding in a few items not included in the blended photo, but I hope you get the idea of what I have in my imagination just waiting to come out.
Over the next several working days, I’ll add subsequent posts showing the actual painting process, any additional photos to be used for reference, and of course the final result. I hope you come back again and again to see how it progresses, and enjoy seeing the creative process.