Evening Light, Invergordon, 12 x 24, Rives

Hello Friends

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. We were in the UK from Aug. 9-26 and I came back with covid.  A very mild case and short-lived, thankfully!  So today I headed to my framers to pick up mounted boards and then to the studio.  I worked on a 12 x 24 of Rives mounted on gatorfoam.  The surface is harder than the pure paper, but lovely and flat!  And I found it really wonderful to work on.  I applied two coats of a ocher-toned Golden pumice gel and the color was perfect under the violets and blues.

While I did a small color study in advance of the painting,  I found the values of the sky and clouds to be a problem initially.  So I darkened the clouds and kept the sky a light combination of blue green and blue.    At first, the clouds were stiff and lifeless.  But I applied Blue Earth violets and blues forcefully, adding random strokes to the clouds–and this really worked!  I loved the effect of it.  And the surface really enables this beautifully.  I was really happy with this!

Not much drawing needed in this painting.  Just a narrow swath of hillsides and three tiny boats!  For the land, I used a variety of violets, dull oranges and greens, and then violet added on top of the oranges to dull them down.

Before I added the water, I had a lovely yellow foreground and wondered whether I should change the composition!  But I wanted the reflections of the clouds.  It’s a very high key, light painting that would probably look best against black.  We’ll see.

I used my fingers to smudge the color in the water, then added more color on top.  It made it look more like reflections.

I was afraid to do this first painting.  I was worried that I’d follow the photo too much, which I probably did.  But I made a lot of changes to the clouds and the colors, so I’m not concerned about that.  Most of all, it was wonderful to work on a surface that doesn’t buckle and that enables many applications of pastel.  I’m looking forward to the remaining 9 boards!

I hope you’ve had a good summer.  I’m looking forward to classes beginning in two weeks and several shows this fall.  And continuing to paint and explore.

Jean