How important is the placement of the horizon line in your painting?

5"x7" landscape study $35

Today's workshop with Karen Margulis was about placing the horizon line on your painting. We talked about the different paper formats (square, rectangle, elongated). Do you want the painting to be about the sky or the ground in a landscape. I prefer the sky and chose a reference photo that I have painted before. The exercise was to do two 5"x7" studies only spending 15 mins on each. This first photo is the one I did first where my focus was on the sky.

5"x7" landscape study $35

My second  study was more about the ground. I ended up doing another 5 or 10 mins more work on this at home…. I wasn't happy with the way it turned out. Then we had about an hour to paint another larger painting thinking about the placement of the horizon line. I chose to use the same reference photo since I had the 2 studies to work from. 

8"x10" pastel on Uart $60

I chose a 8"x10" Uart paper. Right now I prefer to work smaller but this would be fine. I wanted the painting to be more about the sky, but I think the sky and ground ended up being equal in interest.  Of the three that I painted today, I like my first 5"x7" study. It looked the freshest to me. With the limited 15 minutes, I had to get in the basic shapes and values and get my point across.  This is more of the direction I want to go with my paintings going forward. Looking forward to my next workshop with Karen Margulis!