Late Light in progress

I spent a week with Kathryn Stats, learning how to take a plein air sketch and turn it into a studio piece. She is the queen of that.
I confess to you that I brought 10 plein air paintings, 10 reference photos, and 10 blank canvases, planning to knock out 2 paintings a day for 5 days.  Haha.  I didn't quite finish even one.
The most valuable thing that Kathryn taught me is to trust myself. If I trust the photo or my sketch, the painting will be incomplete. If I think it needs more time, be patient and give it more time! 
I was pretty happy with my plein air painting when I started the larger piece, but as I calmly went about enlarging it, I grew to appreciate the scene even more than I did by painting it from life. From life, there are a million things going on and my decisions are made under at least a little duress. Having time to really think it through was so luxurious and nice. I like the new painting much better than the sketch, and I do think it's more like what I saw that evening in Wyoming.