Sedona and an Injured Prickly Pear

"Spring Shadows" oil on canvas, 16x20 inches

"Untitled" oil on linen, 12x18 inches

Lots of Plein Air

It's been a while since I have posted on here. Fortunately I have been painting the whole time.

Back in April I went to the Plein Air painting convention in Monterey. It was worth every penny. I made a road trip out of it, learned a ton, and did some painting on the coast. After the convention I drove up to San Francisco to check out Academy of Art University (Big mistake, they were extremely rude and unwelcoming), and on the way back to Phoenix I swung by Pasadena on a whim to check out Art Center College of Design. They were awesome, gave me a tour, plenty of pamphlets, and answered all of my questions. That's the way a school should be run (Take note, Academy of Art)

Anyway, about the convention. I got to meet James Gurney, which was really great. He signed both of my copies of "Color and Light" and "Imaginative Realism". Such a great person. All of the presenters were very good, some more outstanding than others. Scott Christensen, Ken Auster, Gil Dellinger, and Ray Roberts were among my favorites.

Here's a few of the paintings I did during/after the convention. They're all 9x12 on homemade linen panels (I'll be doing a tutorial on making panels at some point in the future).

I went on a hiking trip to the pines in northern Arizona last month (Strawberry, Pine, and a hike down to the waterfall in Fossil Creek), and came back with another half-dozen paintings. 9x12 oil-primed linen panels again, with the exception of the sunset which is 6x8.

 This was my first painting up in Strawberry. I'm not used to painting so much green, so this was a good lesson in forcing myself to keep greens muted. It's much easier to brighten up a green than to dull it down!

 There were scattered clouds, and I liked the way the sun would break through on this hill.

 A quick study about a mile in a hiking trail in Pine, AZ. I liked the way the warm reflected light hit that log. I had to cut this painting short because a big thunderstorm was rolling in, and we needed to get back to the car in time.

Got back to the bed and breakfast shortly after painting the log. This one was my first time actually painting in a storm. The summer monsoons in Arizona are something else.

 Later that evening we got a really nice sunset. This one was a race against the clock, but I think I got a decent painting out of it.

This was painted during my last morning there. I toned the panel with a slightly yellow grey, to capture the golden morning light. I don't like the composition of this piece.

That's it for now. More to come!

It's been a while. New year, new paintings, new post...

A lot has happened in the past few months. Back in January I took a 4-day workshop at the Scottsdale Artists School, with landscape painter Matt Smith. The workshop really opened up my eyes to some new ways of thinking, especially in regards to color. I've been experimenting with his palette, and while I like it, I had to make a couple modifications.

Matt Smith's palette:
Titanium white, cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium orange, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, mauve blue shade, ultramarine, cobalt blue, cerulean blue hue, phthalo blue, viridian hue, Thalo yellow-green (Grumbaucher)

I dislike how this palette does not contain a warm red. You can mix one from orange and alizarin crimson, true, but it is not the same as a good, medium red. I also hate phthalo blue with a passion. It gets everywhere and ruins your mixtures. Cerulean blue hue is a mixture of phthalo and zinc white, and since there is so much white the tinting strength of the phthalo has been knocked down. I can justify using that. Viridian hue is made from phthalo green, which has a much higher tinting strength than real viridian. I prefer to go with the pure stuff.

Anyway, here is my improved palette (In the order I arrange them on my palette)
Titanium white, cadmium lemon, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium orange, yellow ochre, burnt sienna, bright red (Winsor and Newton), quinacridone rose, alizarin crimson, mauve blue shade, ultramarine, cobalt blue, cerulean blue hue, viridian, yellow-green (Utrecht).

This one is a 24x30 Studio painting. It's still not quite done. My camera really brings out the blue in this painting. It's not that blue, but one of the things on my list of improvements is to dull down the blue shadows a bit.

I've also been doing more plein air painting. Speaking of which, I will be going to the Plein Air convention in Monterey, California in April. I'm really excited for it. 5 days of painting and learning. I'm also taking an extra few days to do some painting on my own. Can't wait.

Anyway, here are some recent plein air paintings. I spent maybe an hour on each sketch. 9x12 panels, painted in my Guerrilla box easel.

I also took this photo for fun, just to see how well my painting matched up. This is in Sedona, AZ

That's it for now. I'm going to try to update this thing a little more often.

Testing out Acrylics

I decided to test out some acrylic paints. It's been forever since I used them (not since high school, actually). I picked up a few tubes from Utrecht:

Titanium white, hansa yellow light, yellow ochre, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, burnt umber, ultramarine blue and chromium oxide.

I knew acrylics dried fast, but I was really surprised at just how fast that was. I guess it's from 6 years of using oils and being spoiled with such a long working-time.

The positives:
The quick drying time allows me to knock out paintings in one evening (This one was painted in an hour). I think this could be a good medium for doing color studies, working out compositions, etc. Potentially even as an underpainting for an oil painting. The speed of drying made me realize the importance of making every brushstroke count. I think acrylics will continue to be a good exercise in that sense. Making the most out of every brushstroke means a "fresher" looking painting, less "muddy" colors, and ultimately a quicker painting.

The negatives:
Acrylics dry darker than they are when wet. I totally forgot about this. My painting turned out much darker than I anticipated. I'm going to have to mix colors lighter than they need to be. It's going to take practice before I can figure that out exactly. The quick drying trait means that I can't mix lots of custom colors and let them sit on the palette for future use... I'm going to experiment with drying retarder next, but the window is still very narrow with how long I can work with the paint. Colors will still have to be constantly re-mixed. This adds time to the painting process.

A few new paintings

I haven't updated in a while. I've got a few new paintings to share...

 First up is the finished Camelback Mountain painting. I think the most successful areas are the large boulders in front. Least successful is the large rock face in the back left. It looks like I got lazy on it. 24x30 inches

 I think this one is 10x14. I think the most successful areas of this painting are the rock faces. The part I find most interesting to paint are the bright, sharp highlights on the top and edges. They really stand out when the rest of the rock is in shadow. I will be painting more rocks with this type of lighting. I think the foreground is least successful, especially the two trees.

This Sedona painting is one of my largest. 30x40 inches. It was a challenge for me, working this large. Normally I work fairly small. I forced myself to use a large brush for most of the painting, so I would not get caught up in the details. I think the composition here is good, though if I could go back I would have waited a few more hours for the sun to go down a bit and cast longer shadows. I think there is not enough cast shadow shapes. 

More on Camelback Mountain

First up is a small sketch from the Echo Canyon hiking trail on Camelback Mountain. I think it measured 10x10.

I liked the sense of light in this one. I also found things to be a little challenging. The rocks here in Phoenix lack a lot of color compared to elsewhere in AZ, such as Sedona (which is what I'm used to painting). Not to mention since this was done before the rainy season, there was very little vegetation. I'm hoping that I can use that to my advantage... I will need to strengthen my composition and lighting more to create an interesting painting, and not rely so much on the color that's already present. It's also going to force me to exaggerate color more in order to avoid making things too neutral or bland-looking.

Here is the start of the large version. This one is 24x30.

My palette here is:

-Flake white
-Cadmium yellow (I try to avoid using this until the very end, and only put it in the closest foreground mixtures)
-Yellow ochre
-Raw sienna
-Cadmium orange
-Cadmium red
-Quinacridone rose
-Burnt sienna
-French Ultramarine
-Prussian blue
-Viridian

Moab Sunset

I finished the painting that I mentioned in my last post. I took a bunch of pictures outside of Moab, Utah just as the sun was going down. I liked the light in them and decided I had to paint it.


This kind of composition was new for me. I placed the horizon fairly low, leaving a very large, open sky. Sky and clouds have been rather neglected in many of my other paintings, so I figured it was about time that I dedicated more time to them. 


One of the techniques that I found especially helpful for the rock face was glazing. I suppose one might call it more of an opaque glaze. Anyway, I began by sketching in the large rock with a slightly darker/more purple version of the local color. After that was dry, I went in with a darker warm purple and glazed over the entire rock. I was using Liquin and mineral spirits to thin it down. That glaze became the shadow in the recesses. When that became tacky (only an hour or so, as the Liquin sets up quickly), I went in with the orange highlight colors. I've found this technique gives a great sense of light, and I've done it on a number of my mountain paintings.


My palette:


flake white
yellow ochre
raw sienna
cadmium orange (just a tiny bit in the final highlights)
cadmium scarlet
quinacridone rose
burnt sienna
raw umber
ivory black (just a touch to help neutralize some of the greens)
French ultramarine
Prussian blue
viridian