Why detail works against you - live oil painting session

Today I'm painting alla prima, a colour block-in of this subject above. It is pumpkin season after all. I totally didn't steal this pumpkin from the kitchen today, where it was intended to be turned into a soup. What I've tried to do with it is to create an interesting, balanced arrangement of colour, light and dark shapes and edges - the "music" of the painting, if you like — that's how I like to think of it. Over the course of an hour or two, I'll be trying to get that music established in the painting, along with a feeling of form, depth and hopefully a little expressiveness. What I'll be studiously avoiding is adding detail (I may squeeze in a little at the end). And I'll be talking about how detail can work against you, especially if you add it too soon, and why it's often our inner perfectionist and critic that wants us to spoil our painting at the start by making us getting the detail brushes out before it's time for them. Here is the ref photo if you want to have a go at painting this yourself: https://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/wp-... ----------------------------- USEFUL LINKS ----------------------------- If you're interested in learning with me, you can see the online art school I run here: https://courses.learning-to-see.co.uk... The online art school give you access to a bunch of courses, membership in my wonderful, supportive (and private) artist's community, live critique calls and a bunch of other stuff. There's no minimum period and you can cancel at any time. The app I use when I'm teaching to investigate the colour is called ChromaMagic. It's a fantastic learning tool. You can find it on the Apple and Google Play stores, and there is also a Windows version. It's very inexpensive and extremely useful! If you struggle at all with judging values and colours, or with mixing, this is a great tool to help you calibrate your eye. You can get the Munsell value scale - which allows you to translate values from the app directly to your painting - from Paul Centore on Ebay here, also very inexpensive: https://www.ebay.com/itm/223003792036 Subscribe to my email list to get notifications of future live streams and other helpful info about painting in oils: https://www.learning-to-see.co.uk/sub...