Paint a subjects you are familiar with. "Found in Captiva!"

After painting for many years on and off, I always have found that when I paint a subject that I am familiar with, I paint them much faster and the components of the artwork ( light, color, perpective, composition, subject, form, etc) work in my favor rather than against me. Why is that? Well, I think it has to do with being more familiar with the subject and as a result grabbing the essence on the subject itself.

Example of this is my painting "Found in Captiva". This painting is 40"x30" and it took me about two days (not full time) to painted. I was surprised how easy it was for me to create the underline drawing, select and modify the colors and illustrate the two subjects. I know my subjects personally, one is my husband and the other is my dog. I know how they move, walk, talk etc. I observe them all the time and I have become so familiar with them that when it came to painting them, I knew where the next brush stroke needed to be. I knew how to create the movement on the left foot for my husband since I know how he walks. I knew exactly how my dogs black hair moves from one side to the other when it moves. I had very few times when I got stack and when I did it was because I had not taken a break for a while and my legs where hurting from standing for a long time.

So before you start painting, become familiar with your subject. Observe it. Look at it 360 degrees. Perspective, colors, light, movement and so on will vary and you will have the chance to discover the best way to represent them or portait them.

While my advise is to become familiar with your subject before starting a painting, I also recommend you to walk away from the painting if you get stack on a particular area of the painting. While narrow vision is great while painting, the bigger picture is what makes the image become attractive or interesting to the human eye.