Henlopen Light, 20 x 16, white pastel premiere

Watercolor underpainting

Charcoal added over watercolor

For my second painting, I wanted to capture the light of the late afternoon sun on the grasses in Cape Henlopen on the walk to Gordon’s Pond. It was quite spectactular.  But I couldn’t find any one photo that had enough compositional interest to it. I finally found one with distant pine trees and bayberry bushes in the foreground and used another for the grasses.

The more difficult part turned out to be the surface.  I used mounted white Pastel Premiere and the tooth was really weird.  I used a watercolor underpainting, which went on typically too light. But then when I started with pastel in the clouds and sky, the surface turned out to be all “pock-marked” and left little holes everywhere. It wasnt what I remember this surface being like at all!  I really loved it when I did a painting in March.  I’m wondering if its the wrong grit?  Maybe the 600 instead of the gritty 320-400.  Anyway, it was a big disappointment.

The underpainting wasn’t very good, but putting the cool red under the bayberry bushes was good. The sky and clouds were kind of a nightmare due to the surface.  I should have put on one coat of pastel and used my fingers to get rid of the holes but didn’t.  And I wasn’t sure what color to make the sky. I didn’t want it to be too green.  So I started with a real blue Beacon then added several values of Ludwig violet on over it, along with a little turquise.  As I was working, I realized that — of course, red violet is the complement of yellow green and it’s the color I needed to set off the greens. That was a happy moment!  I added some red violet onto the tops of the trees and used it, along with green in the dark areas under the bushes and grasses.

As you can see, I used a lot of violets in various places, beginning the grassy background with violet, adding greens, then some darker pieces of violet to indicate plant life.  For the greens, I got out my new box of Blue Earth “earth green” and had a great time building up the colors.  Used these on their sides for the foreground grasses as well.

The clouds were a real problem.  Due to the problems with the surface, I covered up too much sky to begin with, lost the blues in between, etc.  I went back and reworked them to put in more sky holes and make sure they didn’t all end in the same place.  One thing that was nice was adding some light red violet Girault on top of the warmer colors.  It gave the feeling of light peaking through the clouds.

I think I captured the way it felt to be there.  And I painted it on a very cold, rainy day so I was thinking back fondly!  But now the sun has returned for Memorial Day. Meanwhile, the cicadas are singing up a storm! It’s a time of renewed promise and joy.   I hope you are enjoying the day and our new-found freedom!

Shore Patterns, 11 x 14, UART 320

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting with alcohol

I’ve been tardy at posting!  Actually, most of my painting lately has been demos for the Rock Workshop and I didn’t want to post them in the blog.  I needed something for my email newsletter so on Saturday I worked on two paintings from our recent trip to Lewes, DE and Chestertown, MD.  I began with an 11 x 14 of a close up picture of heron and an amazing pattern of water leading up to him.

I began with an underpainting with colors I  really like. I think this could make a really interesting abstract painting!  But, I went on to reality.

I have a lot of new Ludwig “eggplant’ sticks so I couldn’t resist using one for the darks under the reeds. I developed the middle greens then the lighter tops of the grasses in light with a variety of mainly grayed Giraults.  After looking at it more, I realized it was too dark and outlined looking. So I brought more grayed greens over the dark in the far right and work at bringing both grayed greens and some of the lighter colors down.  (I had a very hard time filming this picture due to the darks and lights.)

I tried to keep the foliage above the grass fairly loose and suggestive, but tweaked it a bit too much perhaps.

The reflections came out nicely, however with vertical strokes of warm Girauts and a blue green added on top.

For the water, I used primarily Ludwigs with a variety of blue violets and turquoises.  I began the sand area with a brown Girault, then layered a grayed violet over it. I worked hard at trying to fuse the turquoise water with the more violet wet sand areas.

There were no grasses at the bottom in the photo but I decided it really needed them and used another photo as reference. This made a huge difference compositionally (my husband was happy!).

Finally, I added the heron. I had a number of shots of him.  In the this photo, he was hunkered down and facing left, so I used another photo where he was standing up and facing right.  I like the angle of the water leading to him and him going off in an angle to the right. I think it provides the needed balance.

This was a fun painting to do!  Finding unusual things in nature can be fun but you don’t want to overdo it. It must look natural and believable!

Frederick County Pastorale, 20 x 16, Uart 320

Drawing on Uart board

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Painting in progress

I’ve been having some frustrating times with cameras!  Have been trying to get work done for an upcoming Rock Workshop but my videocamera keeps going to standby.  So I’ve started and stopped a number of paintings.  yesterday was my birthday so I decided I would do a painting for me that didn’t need a videocamera!  Last week we had a lovely drive through Frederick County and I’ve  been wanting to get started on a scene that I knew I would paint.  I took the picture from a one-lane bridge over a stream. No way you could do this on site!  I was really happy painting this–and then we lost our power during a wind storm!  But it came back and all is well and today I finished the painting.

I began with the basic shapes of mountain, land and water.  I really liked the various diagonals that define the picture and the position of the barn.  For the underpainting I used various warms to go under the yellow greens and blue greens of the water.  While I painted the background mountain in violet, I didn’t use any violet in the painting. I stuck to teals and greens and was happy with the combination.  Andthe underpainting worked nicely under the water.

I painted all the trees in dark blue and really liked the color with the background mountain and the greens.  I was concerned that I’d have too much busyness in the midground –land above stream.  I was able to simplify it enough so that I was really happy with it.  Then I was concerned that the rock with foam might be a competing center of interest, but I think the barn is strong enough.

Now I’m dealing with my Nikon camera which seems to be taking pictures too lightly. I adjusted the brightness on this and i think it’s pretty good.  I’ve found a real, live camera shop in Arlington and I think I’ll be heading there!

Had the second surgery on my left wrist last Monday and my hand is very sore and weak, but hopefully I’ll be back to some form of normal in not too many weeks!