Painting Fast (Alla Prima)

House on the Hill by the Sea
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
8 x 10 in/20.3 x 25.4 cm
Copyright Byrne Smith 2016

Today's brief blog is simply about why it's perfectly OK to paint fast. By fast I mean in a matter of minutes, no more than an hour (or two), and certainly no more than an afternoon.

Why, you ask? Isn't painting a serious undertaking and you should not put a time limit on creativity, correct? Well, yes, but seriously...

If you want to paint a loose impression of what you see or what you set up to paint, you should paint fast to capture the moment or the essence of the scene or motif.

If you paint en plein air, you may have all day, but I'm pretty sure your painting will suffer if you spend more than two hours out there, and so you should paint fast.

If you're using acrylics, you really don't have any other choice; therefore, you should paint fast.

If you're trying to get away from the (bad) habit of painting way too many details, you definitely should paint fast.

For all those reasons and more, go for it and see how fast you can paint. (Today's image was completed in just over one hour.) You may be amazed at the improvement.