Light Under the Bridge, Georgetown, 20″ x 16″, UART 320

Underpainting, first stage

Underpainting with alcohol

On Wednesday, I spent the day in the studio painting another scene from the Georgetown Canal sans water.  But this one actually had a little water and the light was gleaming off of it. So it was fun to paint.  I liked the view of the stone bridge with the lovely grasses in light and shadow and the one building complex at upper right, which I tried to minimize.  I wanted to get a really rich, dark underpainting, so I chose UART and used hard pastel and alcohol.  I used the bright yellow green for the sky and windows, a mixture of darks in the dark areas, and oranges and browns under the grasses.

I used a combination of blue green, brown, and grayed violet Giraults for the bridge, using the sides, and just layering them on. I was really happy with the way it came out, with the feeling of the stones without specific articulation.  I loved doing the various greens and I particularly tried hard to keep the values close on the right side, while keeping interest in it.

Doing the water was the most fun!  I decided the brown underpainting wasn’t dark enough (after doing all the green around it) and I laid on my hard pastel and very carefully added alcohol.  Then I began with two Giraults–aqua, then yellow and laid in the pond scum (!).  I finished with a soft lighter yellow, added it with more force near the middle of the picture.

When I first filmed it, the dark blue that I had used under the bridge and in various other darks was way too striking. So today I added dark green and brown into it, which made it look a lot more natural.

The last thing I did was to take some of the light yellow and add it to the sky to give a sense of a light cloud.  I felt that that finished the picture nicely!

Meeker Sunrise, 20″ x 16″, mounted UART 320

Hard pastel and alcohol underpainting

Reference photo

Today I worked on a commissioned painting that I offered to our church auction. It’s taken several years for the purchaser to get back to me, then we decided that I’d use my own photo.  This is Mt. Meeker in Colorado. I was staying in Allenspark, giving a small pastel workshop and I took this photo early one morning.  The photos that the purchaser had were even less interesting than mine!  So I was happy that she agreed to let me use this one.

Compositionally, I knew that I had to make a lot of changes. To begin with, I knew right away that it would be a vertical rather than horizontal.  I also did a lot of tree pruning! I chose to keep in the large evergreen on the left, but shortened or removed some of the aspens.  And, perhaps most importantly, I moved the main cloud to the right side, and added a smaller one by the mountain.  I also added a distant mountain on the left, with a hint of light on it, which I thought made it more interesting.

Since this is UART, I was able to do an underpainting with hard pastel and alcohol, which was a very big help!  You can see how dark the bottom is: a combination of dark blue, violet, and dark cool green.  I used a Caran d’ache almond color for the sky to add some underlying brightness.  I used a warm under cool/cool under warm approach to the mountain, using a reddish brown under the violet, and light violet under the orange.

For the sky, I began with Ludwig aqua, the a very pale Ludwig violet, then a softer very light green that added some yellow to it. I also used the lightest of the Blue Earth violets on the sky.  I LOVED doing the clouds!  So much fun. Have to get back to sky pictures!

The mountain was easy. But then I had to put the dark tree in over the heavily painted sky.  I used soft pastels, trying to keep the branches fine as possible. A the bottom I used my trusty Ludwig eggplant to brush in color, then added various greens around it. The tree trunks with light on them helped break up the foreground.

All of this took 2.5 hours!  I was really quite pleased with it.  Fortunately, I had a clear idea in my head as to what I would do with it.  I hope the buyer likes it!

Canal (no title yet!), 20 x 16, pastel premiere

Watercolor underpainting

Monday was Labor Day and I took advantage of the holiday to drive to Georgetown first thing in the morning. It’s much easier to drive there and park on holidays. It was a lovely sunny day and I was looking forward to getting summer pictures of the canal.  But when I got there, I saw a lot of greenery but no water!  I remembered reading something about them draining the canal ….  Oh well!  I decided to do my walk anyway and found that it was quite interesting. There were some areas with a little water and the light was shining on it.  I took a number of pictures and today spent a rainy day in the studio painting.

I chose a 16 x 20 mounted white Pastel Premiere board and it was just right for the painting.  I used watercolor, as advised by the maker.  I found that the board was resisting the watercolor quite a bit and had to use a lot of water with it.  But it finally took and was god enough to give me the basic shapes.

I chose this photo because of the dark and light patterns and the rather zig-zag shape of dark.  I also loved the light on the stone wall and the warm colors of the greens in the “canal”.  I made one important change to the composition, lowering the lamp so that it is against the dark wall and not against the window, where it was in the photo.

For the painting, I used mainly Ludwigs and Giraults.  I stuck to the colors I saw, pretty much and didn’t try to impose a limited palette on it. But it’s pretty much reds and greens, and I added dark reds into the bridge, shadowed building and the wall below.  I wasn’t sure whether I was going to add the fire escape in front of the left window, but it stood out too much, so I added it and some cast shadows and thought it made an interesting touch.

Yesterday I painted another western scene, an 18 x 24, that was just OK. Nothing much of interest to it. So I’m going to wash it off.  I was happy to do a painting with a lot more detail and interest.

And if any of you have an idea for a good title, let me know!

Thursday: I came up with the title Light Play, Georgetown. Very happy with that. Decided to leave the mention of the canal out since it now looks more like a ditch!