Painting Four Paintings a Day in Texas

Rusty Jones painted four pictures in one day in scenic Fredericksburg, Texas, and wrote about it. The verdict?

The Internet allows artists to share their process easily, and there are few artists who wouldn’t benefit from a seasoned painter’s description of his or her approach. Jones knows that getting four paintings done in one day is a push, but sometimes the stars align, especially if you plan ahead — a little. Jones said that having a preordained idea of what to paint can work against him. Just the same, he programmed his GPS on a previous visit to save a painting spot he admired.

 
Rusty Jones

“‘A Day in the Field’ is a new series of posts I’ll be doing throughout the year,” Jones reports. “I try to make my blog about the experience of painting, whether it is in the studio or outdoors. I enjoy painting in the studio, but it doesn’t make my heart race the way plein air painting does. In the studio I tend to paint subjects I’ve thought about for a while. In the field it’s all about the visceral response to the scene. Something has grabbed my attention and I’ve chosen to take two hours out of my life to react to it by slapping paint onto a canvas. It doesn’t really matter whether the painting succeeds or fails, it’s all about the experience.”

Read about his day in Texas’s Hill Country here.