Memory and Experience

Today after pulling out a barely started canvas from years ago, I saw that the photograph I used as a reference was missing. This is probably why it remained unfinished. I'd rather use a plein air sketch, painted on location, as a reference anyway.  A photo alone gives incomplete and often a flattened view. The camera doesn't see as the human eye does.  A plein air sketch gives me the colors that I personally see, the subtle nuances that will give life to the piece and is not cluttered with anything unnecessary.

I've painted or sketched the Hudson River at least a hundred times and have studied it nearly a thousand  times.  There is a remarkable view from my classroom window at the college where I teach art.  Today relying only

Photo from my classroom at SUNY Orange in Newburgh, NY where I teach one
day a week as an adjunct art professor. (This summer I'll be teaching online
so that I may be in Italy conducting a workshop as well. )

on my memory and experience I began working on this piece again with surprising ease.

                         Pastel, sold, painted from the college's open air garage during a storm.