Free Expressionism 2 - Painting like you just don't care

For our first painting, we'll do a beautiful sunset over the distant mountains, using a palette full of our favorite colors, and fun, bold brush strokes. We'll also see how much we can depart from the reference photo, which as you can see, is just a regular old photo that anyone with a phone can take.

Here we do a beautiful and vibrant flower scene, which was inspired by seeing a garden while just walking down the sidewalk. We learn how to use the reference as just an idea, and not get stuck to it, which allows us to create our own spontaneous world by using the photo as just a suggestion.

Here we paint a lonely old tree, for a more somber mood, because sometimes that's just what you need to express. We use a more somber color palette, and the tree comes to life with some unexpected additions of color and detail (which we learn how to embrace during the painting process, rather than feel like we made a mistake). Like Bob Ross says, "Happy little accidents".

We finish a fun day of painting with a vibrant afternoon cloud scene, which, like our previous pieces, takes on a life of its own.

Here we discuss the 4 paintings we just did, as well as recapping on the overall approach of this exercise: focusing on spontaneity, freedom, and fun.