Painting No. 126 - Short Term Memory

6" x 6" - Oil on Canvas Board

This painting is the result of a misunderstanding. I had been reading The Art Spirit by Robert Henri and in that book he talked about working from memory. His contention was that looking directly at a model (or a photo) made you less creative and that to really express a subject you needed to paint it from memory.

So I was driving one evening and saw two people walking on the greenway and thought - that would make a great painting. I will paint it from memory!

The only problem with this is that Henri intended for you to intensely study the subject prior to painting. Not glance at the subject while driving by at 50 mph. I figured that out after I painted this. Lesson learned.