First of May at Long Hill (Oil Bar Painting as of May 19, 2013)

First of May at Long Hill (Oil Bar Painting as of May 19, 2013), a photo by randubnick on Flickr.

This morning I got up early and got this painting started. I am painting from a photo that I took a few weeks ago at Long Hill Gardens, here in Beverly, MA. I posted the reference photo here yesterday. I woke up knowing that I wanted to rearrange some of the shapes for the composition, but wasn't sure about what to do. So I started by printing out some extra copies of the photo and marking them up to get some ideas. Then I got to work, and painted for about an hour, just laying down some basic color and establishing the composition. When it was time to stop, my hands were covered in green and pink paint, but I had a great big smile on my face.