13, 14 (and 10)

It seems like I forgot to post landscape #10, so here it is

 This one was done with a Zorn palette again (50/50 Flake/Titanium White, Yellow Ochre Light, Vermilion, Ivory Black, and a touch of Burnt Sienna). Old Holland brand paints, again.

I like how the water turned out in this one. I enjoyed painting these overcast river/lake landscapes, so expect to see some more.

I tried some new things with the trees in the background. All the leaves have fallen, so we are left with trees made up of only sticks and branches. Difficult to paint without going into a ton of detail. I looked at how some plein air painters tackled the subject before I dove in. After some thinking I mixed a hue that was halfway between the sky color and the branch color, and painted broad strokes for the majority of the branches. Then I went in with a liner brush, along with some extra medium, and painted a few stray branches here and there, along with the trunk. The idea was to give the impression of detail without actually painting all of it. The trees on the left are farther away and thus have less branch details. I think it ended up being pretty effective.

Next up we have #13:

I haven't included any man-made things in this series yet. In fact, I rarely paint buildings in general, so this was a nice change of pace. I was able to get some pretty crisp details using a Flat #2 nylon brush. I stuck with that brush for the buildings, and used mostly #2 Filbert bristle brushes for the rest of the landscape. I referenced a photo I found online, taken in the German countryside.

Palette: Titanium/Flake White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red, Burnt Sienna, Green Earth, Sap Green (Rembrandt), Cobalt Blue, Ivory Black. I also used some of the leftover purples and turquoises that I had mixed for landscapes 11 & 12.

Next up is #14:

Some parts of this painting I really like, others not so much. I like how the trees turned out. Especially the texture of the bark. I'm pretty happy with the background mountains too. The strokes used on the grass/brush in the mid ground (just beyond the three trees) looks too repetitive. I'm not happy with that. I need to work on the foreground grass more. I tend to paint that last, and by the end of the painting I am usually losing patience and rushing things. I need to improve that habit...

Same palette as #13. These were both painted the same day.

I've been thinking about sharing some music on this blog too. Music is something really inspires me, and I am always listening to it. I have Pandora radio going all the time and I love coming across new artists. I think I will post a YouTube clip of what i'm listening to each time I post. Could be a classic, could be something new. Maybe I'll post something that interests you.

11 and 12

I needed some new material for painting landscapes, so I drove down highway 88 and took some pictures of the Superstition mountains. I drove to the top of a hill off the side of the highway, hiked around a bit, and got lots of good photos.

I've painted 2 landscapes from the photo shoot so far. That makes 12/100 for that goal of mine. Still a ways to go but at least I have started to put a dent in it.

My palette is a little more extensive on these paintings. I used Old Holland oils, again, with Graham Walnut Alkyd Oil as my medium.

Palette: 50/50 Flake/Titanium white, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Red Medium, Alizarin Crimson (Williamsburg), Green Earth, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine, Ivory Black.

In the second painting I used some Natural Sleeping Beauty Turquoise Genuine from Daniel Smith Oils. This paint is made from real turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty Mountain mine in Arizona. It's a really great color. My mom gave me a few Daniel Smith oils for Christmas. They are made from gems, including Malachite, Tigerseye, and an iron oxide red made from Sedona rocks. They are really cool.

Egg and Pitcher

Happy new year!

I've started a few new paintings. I wanted to take some in-progress pictures again and this egg painting seemed like a good candidate. I'm using a limited palette here of 50/50 Titanium/Flake White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, and Ivory Black (Old Holland brand). I am using a 50/50 mix of Graham Walnut Alkyd and Stand Oil as my medium. I think I will use a little bit of Indian Yellow and Ruby Lake glazes to get some extra warmth in the shadows, but that should be the extent of my palette on this one.

It's on a 6x8 inch panel.

Day 1:

First I toned the panel with some burnt umber and turpentine. I put it in front of the fan to dry while I set up my palette. I mixed a little bit of my medium in with each color on my palette. After getting the initial sketch and values painted in with burnt umber, I got a rough first layer completed. I used bristle brushes for this stage.

Day 2:

The Walnut Alkyd/Stand Oil mixture caused the surface to be slightly tacky by the next day. Still wet enough to work with but tacky enough to accept more paint. I switched to small sable brushes for this stage. I made some adjustments and refined the shape of the pitcher and some of the reflections. I think at this stage the underpainting is finished.

Next up is glazing. I'm going to try to keep glazing at a minimum. Glazing attracts too much dust, and I find that it is too difficult to control it on such a small painting. Plus I don't really like the gloss.

The egg needs some orange tones added to the shadowed side. A little bit of warm tones need to be added to the pitcher as well. The wood table still needs a lot of work. The reflections need to be toned down a bit, and I also have to add in the wood grain. The grain is very subtle in this piece of wood so it shouldn't take too long.

Day 3/4:

Done

I did a couple layers of glazing and I think I can say this painting is finished. I brought some more color into the shadows with Alizarin Crimson, Ruby Lake, Indian Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, and a touch of Viridian. I went with a few more colors than I had originally planned but I think the wider variety of color looks better. In addition to the glazing I went in with some Titanium White and put in the final bright highlights and reflections.

Sedona... finished?

Almost finished, I think. There's still some more changes and final touches I want to add to this before I really call it done. I'm still not too happy with the foreground. I'll have to think about it for a few days. It's just about there, though. I'm anxious to get this framed and up on the wall, and start on the next one.

Work-in-progress Gourdes

Well, it has been a busy past couple of weeks. We had our grand opening at Montage gallery/studio on Mill, which was a huge success. I talked to tons of people, passed out a lot of business cards, and sold 3 paintings.

The Sedona painting is nearly done. I've been working on it at the gallery while I talk to people. People enjoy watching artists work, and having my easel set up in the gallery has brought in more traffic. Since the painting is at the gallery it means I can't take a picture of it right now. D'oh. I'll have to take an update picture during the week.

I've been working on a little side project. I got the itch to do a very refined painting on a panel. I also decided to take some progress photos of everything, from sketch to completion. The panel is a 5x7 pre-primed Masonite panel from Gessobord. I was pretty impressed with the quality, though they can be a little pricey.

After making some thumbnail sketches and deciding on my final composition, I started working on the panel. I began with a charcoal pencil sketch of the subject (in this case, Gourdes. Gourdes were on sale at the grocery store around Halloween, so I bought some and took a bunch of pictures).

The Photo:

The winning thumbnail sketch:

The Charcoal line drawing on the panel:

Finally its time to start painting! I decided I will be using only Old Holland paints for this. The underpainting was done with Flake White and Burnt Umber.

Because I used Flake White (a quick drying pigment) and thin layers, this was dry the next day. Ready for the first layers of opaque color. My palette here (Old Holland, again) is Flake White, Naples Yellow Deep, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red Medium, Red Ochre, Green Earth, Cobalt Blue, Burnt Umber, Ivory Black.

I took the picture indoors (it is dark outside right now) so there is a bit of a glare from my studio lamps.

Now the painting is awaiting glazes. Can't wait to get started on that.

12/19 Well I did some glazing last night, and a little more work with opaque paint. I figured I would just edit this post rather than make another one, and keep all the progress photos in one place. Stuff is really starting to take shape now.

Glazing unfortunately makes the painting glossy, and that makes it difficult to photograph. However since I am using only Liquin as my medium it means the painting dries practically overnight. I might be able to paint another glaze layer on tonight.

12/20 Next glaze layer:

Things are looking better. I still need to deepen a lot of the shadows, especially the close gourde. I might be able to get that done in 1 or two more glaze layers. For glazing I used my transparent paints from Old Holland. Old Holland paints are rather expensive, but I am slowly building up my stock of colors. I used Liquin as a glazing medium, and a little bit of Flake White for the areas where I needed to bring up highlights. The rest of the colors were Indian Yellow (orange), Cobalt Yellow, Ruby Lake, Green Earth, Viridian Light, Ultramarine Blue Deep, Ivory Black.

Well I think it's finally finished. I applied another glaze layer last night,with the same palette of transparent colors listed above, with the addition of Permanent Alizarin Crimson (I don't have an Old Holland version of this color so I had to use Winsor&Newton). There's some slight color changes I might make in the next day or two but I think that's probably all the adjustments that need to be made.

 On to the next one!

Work-in-progress Sedona landscape

This painting is 34x26 inches. I'm referencing some pictures I took in Sedona earlier this year. You may recognize the rocks on the left side from a smaller painting I did a few weeks ago. That was more or less a color study for this painting. I've been slowly building up thick layers of paint. The texture is really starting to come out. I've still got a lot to do...

In case you are curious about my palette: 50/50 Titanium White/Flake White, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Scarlet, Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Terra Verte, Cobalt Blue, Ivory Black.

Landscapes 8 and 9

I have a couple more landscapes. This weekend is the Tempe Festival of the Arts, and I will be at my gallery all weekend. I'm going to have my easel set up and I should hopefully be able to knock out a few more of these landscapes while talking to customers. Hopefully I can sell a painting or two while I'm at it.

Another overcast landscape with a limited palette. I used Titanium/Flake White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Ivory Black, and a touch of Cobalt Blue in the sky. I passed through lots of beautiful farmland when I was driving across the country earlier this year. Wish I would have taken more pictures.

I believe this is a little ways outside of Globe, AZ. I referenced a photo from an old AZ Highways magazine. Palette: Titanium/Flake White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, Burnt Sienna, Terra Verte, Cobalt Blue, Ivory Black.