Painting Moving Water

'On The Rocks' 11 x 14

At class last night we were working on painting moving water. I chose to paint from a photo I took of the Toccoa River during my recent Terry Ludwig workshop. The funny thing is that yesterday Jayne and Holly got together to paint and both chose the same scene! Keep in mind we all must have taken hundreds of river photos yet we all chose very similar photos to paint from! I love when stuff like that happens! So for this painting, I blocked it in with nupastels and then Marsha asked me where my focal point was...and told me to imagine I ony had 10 minutes to finish and to develop my focal point first....then when she came around again she had me work on the 2nd most important feature. I left the trees until last and really didn't do much more to them from my initial block-in. I really like this thought process for developing a painting and I will try it again!