Why Paint Outside on a Sunny Day?

Do you ever go outside and paint? You might want to try it sometime. Why? You can see real shadows, study them and then when you are painting inside from a mediocre photo without shadows, you will remember how to paint the shadows you observed outside.

I have seen really experienced teachers, like Fred Eckman, paint wonderful shadows from memory. I think if you observe enough real shadows, then they stick in the back of your memory and you can re-create them in your indoor paintings.

I painted this picture on the brightest sunny day we had during our workshop in France. It is the door of an old mill now turned into a wonderfully affordable bed and breakfast. If you squint at my painting you can see where I wrote the name of the B & B in my attempt at French schoolgirl cursive writing. "Moulin du Chapitre".