Red Leaves and Rocks, 12 x 16, UART 400

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Hello Friends. It’s a lovely sunny and warm day here in the DC area just before Thanksgiving. I’ve been continuing with my C&O Canal series and have another 24 x 18 on the easel to finish in December. I finished this 12 x 16 intimate rock scene this past week and wanted to share it with you.  With this painting, I made a decision: if the underpainting is going to be 80% or more of dark color–use dark paper!!!  Black UART would have been perfect for this painting. But I don’t generally like to work on black and thus, I have none of it.  So–lots of dark blue underpainting instead.

A challenge of this painting was to produce the stretch of light leading from the left over to the large rocks.  I didn’t really accomplish that with the underpainting, but paid a lot of attention to it as I was adding in the small twigs and such.

I really enjoyed doing the rocks on the left, playing with subtle colors of blues, violets, and peach colors.  I struggled with the color on the larger rocks, however.  I used a soft very light cool green and some yellow, along with violets and blue greens in the shadowed areas.

The photo is all pretty much grays with only a few very dark red leaves.  I added more–my prerogative and had fun adding in the little bright yellow leaves on the right.  As I’m writing this, I’m thinking that a floating red leaf might be a very nice addition.  Perhaps something to consider.

The water and reflections were more of a challenge than normal and I redid it several times, focusing on the rock reflections.  I used a lot of greens, from a very dark warm green and some Ludwig violet then various values of yellow green on the top.

I like this intimate view of rocks and autumn foliage. It’s a real change from the larger paintings with more distance and punch to them.  I’m looking for an opportunity to show these paintings. I’ve just been given a show at the Alexandria campus of NOVA (Northern Virginia Community Coll) in Sept. but not sure that’s the right venue.  We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I wish you all a lovely Thanksgiving with family, friends, or whoever!  We DO have much to be thankful for, despite the constant state of unease!!!

Autumn Light C&O Canal, 24″ x 18″, Pastel Premiere, Italian clay

Stage 1

Stage 2, top part mostly done

Stage 3, roughing in the side and water

Just finished my third canal painting.  This one was not a demo.  I really liked the possibilities of the photo and decided that it warrented a larger format: 24″ x 18″.  I found a mounted board of the Pastel Premiere Italian Clay and decided to work on that.  So I didn’t do an underpainting, which posed its difficulties for me.  But it was kind of fun to just do a drawing, then begin at the top and work my way down.  I started with hard pastels and used them in the painting a lot more than I normally do.  I used a dark NuPastel “bottle green” to do much of the initial laying-in of the darks.  I tried to keep to the hard pastels, but fairly quickly switched to the Giraults.  But I left the hard pastels in my corn meal box and continued to use them.

I had a challenge with the orangey hay bale-looking bush in the middle. I started it out to big and prominent and after reworking it several times, decided to add more of the green bush on the right over it.  There are three areas of water here with narrow paths between the grasses that link them.  I added a little more light in the middle pool to make it clear that it was water.

Once I was happy enough with the top, I used hard pastels to rough in the bank on the left and then some of the water.  For the water, I started first with some of the reflections at the top, then decided I really needed to just get the blues in there. I loved the progression from the deep blue violet at the bottom to the warm aqua above.  I used a number of soft pastels to accomplish this.  Then went back to the reflections.   There were little ripples in the water so I used a number of small horizontal lines to try to indicate this.

The last step was the bank and leaves and stems going over the water.  I used greens, browns, and violets in the shadowed areas  to try to give them more interest and dimension.

I loved painting this!  It’s one of those happy paintings that you just love to do. The line of the bank leading up to the light on the water was such a great composition.  I wanted to take my time with it and enjoy doing it, which I did.  But I know that I really prefer to start with an underpainting.  I thought of doing a partial underpainting, but I it can be more difficult to work with, when some areas are covered and others are the color of the paper.  This approach worked well.

Light and Shadow, Great Falls, 20″ x 16″, UART 320

Drawing on pastel surface

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Today I did my second demo of the week for my Wednesday class.  It wasn’t easy!  But my class gave my many helpful suggestions and I was pretty happy by the time I finished it off to go home.  This picture has less light and sky than the first one and there is the odd covered bridge-like structure — which isn’t a bridge at all because it doesn’t go anywhere!  It seems to be a storage shed.  But anyone who had walked the towpath from Great Falls to Wide Water has seen it. What I really liked was the overall flow of the composition and the lovely warm color reflecting in the water under the “bridge”.

Looking at the initial drawing, you’ll see that I had a figure in there.  I left her in for a time, but decided to take her out. We weren’t sure if the proportions looked right and there was enough else going on.

The biggest challenge was what to do with the “bridge”, which in the photo was almost completely uncovered by trees. There was a a tree to the right but not as large as what I created.  My initial thought was to try to add more cast shadows. The light is coming from the right (west).  But when I enlarged the tree to cover up more of the bridge, it looked much larger, and thus, much closer, and so–no cast shadows.  But I liked it nonetheless.  That was the one major compositional change that I made.

Underpainting colors–the biggest question I get.  I knew I was going to be using yellows in the trees at top and that I’d be putting violets and blues on the “bridge”, so I went with violets under the background trees.  I brought this color down into the background as well and used it for the color of the water in the foreground.  For the bridge, I used a warm “almond” color with browns, using a warm-under-cool approach.  But for everything else, I used warm under warm and cool under cool.  My reasoning is that the bridge is a large, flat structure, over which it is easy to apply the colors.  But everything else is much more complicated!  Thus, by using warms under warms and cools under cools, I can see where the warm areas of the composition will be after the alcohol is applied.  In all, I used various violets, browns, greens and some orange.

There were a number of struggles in the painting.  Going too bright immediately in the background was a problem.  The “stepped” wall in the mid section was also a challenge as the light areas seem to jump out too much.  I finally used a darker neutral to make it work.  The walls under the bridge were begun with “eggplant”, over which I applied majenta, warm brown, green, and finally dark grayed blue. The final grayed color was a little lighter and set it back where it belonged!  (Thank you Katherine!)  I used reds and reddish browns in the large tree at right, then added several greens into it.

The final work was down on the towpath and the grasses in the lower left.  For the towpath, I started with two colors of light and dark to just place the shadows.  Then I used various violets and browns over them to break them up and soften.  I added some clumps of leaves along the edge and various lights and darks.  For the grasses, I used a mix of pastels, including going back to the hard pastels, which was kind of fun!

I’ve wanted to paint this scene for some time and I’ve finally done it.  Not sure I will again, but I think this is the best time for it, given the lovely color around it.  And–it’s one of the places on the canal that still has water!

Lock 17, Great Falls, 20″ x 16″ UART 320

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Painting at the end of the demo

Reference photo

Hello Friends. I’ve had a number of walks lately on the C&O Canal and plan to do a series of paintings of it.  It’s fall here, finally, but the color is still wanting. However, the sunlight has been gorgeous.  Today I did an all-class demo and finished the painting during the afternoon. I’ll be doing another on Wednesday and will also do a demo for my Saturday class. I also hope to just paint from my many pictures.

This subject is one I’ve done before. It’s my favorite lock by far, and there is still a little water in it (but not as much as I’ve given it).  (The canal has been drained pretty much and some parts are nothing but grass.) I’m including the reference photo so you can see what it looked like.

For the underpainting, I decided to use greens under the greens and warmer colors that would go on top.  It worked pretty well.  I used oranges under the brighter greens and turquoise under the towpath and rock.

The tree in the upper left went very quickly. I used a several Roche oranges and then filled in behind with greens and some sky holes.  The bush on the right, however, was a real challenge. I had planned to make it a brighter yellow, but when I tried to do it it didn’t look good at all. I got out my Blue Earth lemon set and used the wide variety of warm greens in it to get the shape of the bush. I then added yellow greens some orange and some lighter yellow near the sky.  Much happier with it.

The lock itself had to be redrawn.  I hadn’t spent enough time on the structure and angle of the cross pieces.  But finally got it where down.  Then we all felt that the tow path on the upper left was too hightened and accentuated.  So I raised it and covered some of it with grasses.

The water and reflections and the lower part of the painting were a challenge. While there is a little water in the photo, much of it is mud!!!  I put in the reflections of the trees and bushes in the upper right, then added various blues over the reflections.  But when I went to do the grasses in the lower right, I realized that the very large dark shadow that was in the photo didn’t make sense if there was water.  So I added more water, all the way to the bottom right, then made the darker area into grasses of the bank (or at least that’s what I tried to do!).

Anyway, I’m pretty happy with this painting and look forward to the next set of challenges!