Hawlings River Bend, 36″ x 24″, Lux Archival

Graphite drawing, 18″ x 12″

Drawing on Lux Archival paper

Underpainting (hard pastel and alcohol)

Painting as initially completed

On Sunday I completed a painting that was commissioned by a lovely couple in Laytonsville.  They knew of me from purchasing a small painting of rocks from District Arts Gallery in Frederick MD.  Now they wanted me to paint the stream and rocks behind their house.  It was winter.  They wanted fall. There were no fall pictures.  And they wanted it to be big!  SO–I gulped and said “sure”.

I’ve never painted anything this large so I had to think about what paper I would use.  The original request was for a 41 x 31 framed painting. But that became more flexible.  However, looking at Dakota’s website, I saw that Lux Archival comes in a 5 pack of 24 x 36, which was perfect for the painting.  The framing would be with a floating double mat and taupe frame by Larson-Juhl.

So I ordered the paper and began drawing. I had to tape four sheets of drawing paper together to get a big enough drawing of half size!  And I was using two different photographs.  One had a better image of the river, the other had tree in foreground, which I decided would work nicely.  I used the photo from Rock Creek of the red leaves that are in my December paiting.  Both reference photos were black and white.  The winter color was just too dull.

After doing the initial drawing and getting it transferred to the paper, I felt a lot better. That large sheet of white blank paper was VERY daunting!  Then I got the underpainting in and felt even better.  But I was really at a loss about the color.  They wanted blues, reds, and neutrals.  But what to do with all that ground that would be covered in fall leaves?  Their other painting is “Terra Cotta Leaves” and they loved the colors in it, so I decided to look for terra cottas. But I ended up with a lot of oranges!  And when I started working on the water, I used too much blue.  I was disappointed in the surface–it just doesn’t have the tooth of the UART or Pastel Premiere so trying  to get texture in the moving water just didn’t work.

Anyway, I sent them the image “painting as initially completed” and they came last Tuesday to look at it. I also sent this to my students and they all loved it.  But I knew it wasn’t there yet.  Greg and Mo were not sure what to expect when they came to see me, never having commissioned a painting.  But I wasn’t hurt or upset in any way!  I was just stumped as to the colors that would work.  When they came, they suggested more straw colors in the land pieces and toned down water.

So I found some grayed yellows and converted the oranges to that and I knew it was better.  Then I added some warm grayed greens to the rocks.  When I looked at the color image, I realized that all of the dark in the rocks was lichen and it was green. And there is the really large rock, which I thought was pretty ugly.  But it’s why they bought they property!!! Hmm.  So by adding the greens, I could then add more brownish greens into the water to kill the blues.  Also, in the original, I had used the same bright turquoise for three parts of the water in light and they were in competition with each other. So I toned down the water below the fallen tree and broke it up as well.

Then I added the effect of sand pebbles to the piece of land at lower right.  This was a request and I found it to be pretty easy to do.  And finally, I decided to use my fingers to blend the tops of the sky/trees together to push it back.  That worked really nicely.  A little blending in the water as well but not much.

Yesterday they came back for the final approval.  Greg asked that I show more of the rock, which I had covered in too many leaves. I got to show them how easy it is to brush off a small area and replace with other colors.  Then I added a swiggle of the light brown in the water leading to the rock in the middle of the stream.  That was it. I signed it and tomorrow it will go to the framers.

What a relief!!!

Farm Buildings in Snow, 16″ x 20″, Pastel Premiere white, medium grit

Graphite drawing, 8 x 10

Water color underpainting

It’s been a long time since I posted anything!  Today is the first “free” painting I did –something just for me.  I did one in stages as a demo for my winter classes and more recently, I did a 36″ x 24″ commissioned work.  Largest pastel I’ve ever done.  They wanted fall and all I had was winter.  Will post it when it’s complete–almost.

The other reason for not posting is a broken wrist that occured Jan. 10th with surgery and some misery 10 days later.  Will have another surgery, probably in April to remove a metal plate.  But, amazingly, I can type and play piano–it’s me left wrist–so I can also paint.

However, for today’s painting, I decided to do something different.  In searching for snow photos for my class, I came across this one, uncropped. There were a lot more trees at top and I realized that if I cropped it, I’d have something.  I also knew I didn’t want to overdo the background.

I have several mounted Pastel Premiere white boards that I bought at the last convention I attended in 2017!  No alcohol on these but they take water color really nicely and I like the grit a lot.  So I decided it was time for a “center of interest” painting.

I started with a drawing that I really enjoyed doing. I can’t imagine skipping this step in most cases.  It really gives me a feeling for the picture and where I’m going with it.  Then I did the underpainting.  I have to replenish my watercolor!  Most of it is dried up or unopenable.  But I got a lovely violet for the background and used some greens and reddish browns for the rest.  I loved the way it looked once it dried–kind of fairy-talish!  And it dries really flat, which is nice.

I began with nothing but Giraut.  The secret to working with pastel over watercolor is to use very light strokes of a pastel like Girault that isn’t too soft.  By using light applications I could add pastel indications of trees and leave most of the background unpainted over.  I also decided to leave some of the foreground and like the way it looks–at this point anyway.

For the ‘whites’ I used Ludwigs, and some of my AS tinted whites, but mainly Ludwig–blues, pink, orange, and yellow.  The tinted white I used was a pthalo green.  I’m not sure about the blue roof on the barn–it may be too blue and need to come down.  But I didn’t want everything to be so white!

In the photo both sides of the buildings are equally light but I changed it to have the light coming from the right.  I also added a piece of the roof in the left buidling, to make it clear that what is on the roof is snow.

So, I’m pretty happy with this little painting and feeling like I’m back in the swing again!

Hope you are surviving all this wintry weather. Don’t know if any of you are from Texas, but you have my sympathy. I’ve been in winter weather with no heat and light and it’s no fun. But at least the pipes didn’t burst.  So stay warm and healthy and hopefully, get your shots!