This afternoon I did a painting demonstration at Abend Gallery in Denver, CO in cunjuction with the Plein Air Artists of Colorado Exhibit.  It was a lot of fun to do the demo.  I did something that I had never done in a demo before.  I painted from memory. Yes, it was risky, but I felt excited about the painting, so I tried it anyways. 

Before I tell you how it turned out, let me first explain why I feel memory painting is important.  I did not truly appreciate the value of memory painting until recently.  However, I now realize that when I do paint from memory, I rely more heavily on the underlying message and less on the objects in the painting.  I remember the 'mood' or the 'feeling' of the place.  I am free to express myself as I try to capture the memory in paint.  I can more easily fill the work with emotion - since memory is closely tied with emotion. 

When I paint strictly from the reference, I find that I am often over-influenced by it and the work becomes too literal.  Memory work frees me from the literal copying of a scene.

The practice of memory painting also enables me to remember color and value relationship that occur naturally.  Thus when I paint from photographic references, I can compensate for the failures of photography.

So, I spent 3 hours painting a 16 x 20 of a scene I did the day before en plein air.  I thought about the scene all morning and during the drive down to Denver.  I did a thumbnail for composition and then began the painting without looking at the plein air study or a photo. It was a complete trill! 

I knew that I wouldn't recreate the composition exactly, but I was gambling on my ability to remember the color and value relationships.  It was of primary importance to capture the mood of the place.  To my delight, when I finally pulled out the plein air study to compare, the colors and values were very close - and the mood was right on!  The painting succeeded and it felt the way I intended.  Whew, I pulled that one off!

There are always differences between plein air and studio enlargements, but I find that this method captures the initial inspiration much better than simply painstakingly trying to scale up the study.

Those who were there remarked how closely I captured the scene, yet they also recognized that each has a different special quality.