I’m really pleased with this second go at the diagonal cutters. This one is an 8″ x 10″ canvas panel with Royal Talens Cobra paint. It was fun adding all of the little highlights and cracks at the end. The design is strong, so I’m considering doing it again, but larger.
Finally got a chance to do a quick still life. 8″ x 10″ canvas panel. This one is for the Word of the Week, which is “tool”. I’m trying out water miscible oils – some Holbein Duo Aqua Oils and some Royal Talens Cobra. I find that the Duo is pretty stiff, while the Cobra is rich and creamy.
Started a new study, 8″ x 10″.
The ice cubes are acrylic, but the limes are real. I love the glow of the glass on the left. In order to balance the composition I will probably have to make the knife blade and the lime wedge brighter than they appear in life.
A quick sketch with Burnt Sienna from the Royal Talens Cobra line of water miscible oils. I’ve been experimenting with these paints for the drawing in order to avoid toxic solvents. I find that I can paint a rough line and then push it around with a brush full of water.
I’m part way through finding the right values. It looks like I will have to make the lit part of the table darker in order to make the lime wedge and the knife pop. This will also make the shadows a bit less harsh.
Finally got around to painting some green onions …
Here’s Gary’s take on my spiral stairway design. He did this sketch in just a few minutes by painting directly on a reference photo.
I’ve moved on from my 8″ x 10″ study to an 18″ x 24″ painting. I’m blocking in the initial forms in acrylic and then I will switch to oils which will be better for all of the cylindrical surfaces. Super excited!
I started another red and green onion painting – same setup, different view point. This design is much more interesting than the previous one and I find I’m getting faster and faster and better at soft edges. After I did the initial block in, Gary gave me a color lesson by way of a demo – he painted the red onion. Now I plan to finish the rest of the painting and then start another and see if I can apply some of what he taught me in the demo.
Red and green onions are turning out to be really good models. They don’t complain and the don’t spoil before I finish painting. These onions are almost a month old and still looking great.
Drawing with water-miscible Burnt Sienna. I’m getting faster and faster with the drawing and initial block in. Probably spent about 15 minutes on the drawing.
I painted the background and then Gary painted the onion as a demo. It was a real lesson in chromaticity and the properties of Indian Red. The onion has a bit of almost every color on my palette.
As the glorious summer fades and the nights grow cooler, it is time to head back to school. I’ve moved back in to my studio at Gage and joined three returning classmates and met four new ones. After a bunch of organizing and unpacking, I started on my first still life for the atelier.
I thought I’d start the year with green and purple chiaroscuro. I set up the scene about three weeks ago, but didn’t get around to painting it until this week. Was happily surprised that nothing spoiled and that the green onion began to take on interesting shapes as its shoots dried.
Here’s the combined sketch/underpainting. I’m getting much faster now. I drew the shapes with a paintbrush and then blocked in the values all in about 30 minutes.
After two brief sessions, the painting is coming along well. I still need to do a bunch of work adding volume, texture and detail to the green onion.
Here’s Gary’s 15 minute interpretation of the same scene. I like how he used more colors and brighter colors and how he brought the image up out of a rough masses.
I took a weekend trip to the Columbia National Wildlife Refuge near Moses Lake to do some plein air painting. The area near the Potholes Reservoir Dam is great for plein air. The desert scenery is fantastic and the network of dirt roads has lots of pullouts and parking and access to restrooms and a nearby general store. It’s about twenty miles from Moses Lake.
After a year of studio painting I had forgotten how hard it is to do plein air. The problem is time. In the studio, you can always paint an hour longer or return another day. In the great outdoors, the light is only good in the early morning and late afternoon and it changes constantly. It also takes time to scout locations, and if you are painting far from home, you really have to wrap things up because it is not practical to return.
You also have to pack carefully and make wise use of limited space.
All in all it was a great trip, but I really need more practice.
In order to get the best light and shadows, I painted early in the morning and late in the afternoon. This shot was taken about an hour before sunset.
On the first day I only had enough time to do a rough block in before the sun went down.
The thunderclouds that had been building all afternoon put on a great show as the sun went down.
During the hottest part of the day when shadows were few and far between I scouted locations.
In order to make the best use of the golden hour, I spent time during the middle of the day blocking in shapes. Having a good drawing freed me up to think about color when time was short during the good light at the end of the day.
End of day two. One take away is that time management is really important in plein air – with changing light conditions, you just don’t have much time to mix colors and apply paint.
Just finished a small, 6″ x 12″, oil study for my Keechelus Lake painting. I’ve been noodling around with this idea for over a year, starting with a gouache painting and progressing to a simple Illustrator drawing, and then a more complex illustrator drawing.
The color scheme for the study uses a single string, anchored with Cadmium Orange and Prussian Blue. Most steps include a bit of Quinacridone Violet and Titanium White. The darkest step also has Burnt Umber.
I’d like to try a few more color schemes, including Red/Green and Blue/Yellow or Violet/Yellow. Also want to look again at Blue/Orange, but with a lighter sky. After that, I will probably try a slightly larger study to figure out atmospheric perspective in the hills and the ground.
