After Schmid

After Schmid
6 x 8  Oil Painting Study
NFS

I'm reading the absolutely wonderful book, Alla Prima II by painting legend Richard Schmid. I originally was not going to get the book since I have the original Alla Prima  book which was first published in the last 90's. That book is excellent and has long been held as the bible of painting. However I took a closer look and saw that a lot had been added and updated so I got the new version and am glad that I did.  The book is like eating a rich gourmet meal for artists. It is filled with gems of wisdom and perspective as well as more practical information and includes quite a bit more than the original book. One interesting thing to see in comparing the 2 books is how far printing has come in that time. The level of richness of color, detail and brushstrokes visible compared the the first is simply amazing. I compared several painting in the first version to the current and there is no comparison. While the paintings were beautiful in the first book, they are so much closer to what I imagine the actual paintings look like in the second.

In the spirit of "painting the masters",  I took one painting, greatly simplified it to try to get the feeling and approach. That is the study above.

Richard's version is below. I learned a lot by doing even this quick study which was fun and felt pretty natural even though the process is different than my usual approach.  I like the feeling of it and will continue to experiment with it to have another option in my painting tool kit.

North Garden Peonies
Oil Painting by Richard Schmid