learning to lie

Did you know you can lie when you're painting? I am only now really learning this even though it sounds obvious. Often when I'm painting from a photo or a still life I am trying so hard to capture what I see that I forget that I can lie! I can move things around or change things to make my painting better. Again, it's so much harder than it sounds!

This is one of the lessons I really tried to put into practice during my painting retreat in Italy in May. I started with a pretty but boring photo and worked to improve it in painting form! I cropped it, took out some trees, added figures, and emphasized the light. You can see the whole process below!

How great is that? You can lie when you paint!