Large Plein air landscape paintings

"Clouds Over Sonoma Mountain", oil on canvas, 36" x 18"

I've been having this internal debate about how to approach big paintings. I love painting outside, but returning to the same location with a big painting can be a pain, particularly in the wind. I have had this one canvas kicking around for a few months that I started on a windy day with these great clouds marching across the sky. The difficulty was that the shadows kept moving with the clouds! After having my entire painting rig nearly go head over heels a couple of times, I packed it in. I managed to get back to the location one more time, but it was completely overcast and the light was very different. But I didn't want to give up on it because I really liked the start, and the way I had blocked in the clouds.

Last night I set up a temporary studio up and pulled out my reference photo of the location. I felt a little odd re-working a plein air painting from a photo, but mostly I just adjusted the colors of what I had put down before, and I'm very happy with the final result.