Morning Light, Stonington, 18 x 18, Lux Archival

Reference photo 1

Reference photo 2

Drawing

Partial lay in of hard pastel showing red ink surface

My most recent painting was begun some time ago.  I decided to use two different photos of Stonington, Me harbor as I wasn’t completely happy with either.  I wanted the lower building from photo 1 and some of the houses from photo 2.  I worked on a drawing, picking and choosing houses and simplifying them as well.   I used red earth ink to tone the paper and liked the effect of it.  I did a drawing then started with hard pastels to lay in the basic colors. I decided to use primarily blues and greens.

I made a number of changes, including adding tall evergreens behind the houses and removing the one really tall tree from photo 1.  I left out the rock in the water and, as mentioned, I simplified the houses.  I wanted the yellow house at the top of the hill to be the center of interest and tried to keep the others a little cooler with less sharp lines.

I also decided that I wanted to add lupines to the painting as they were all over Stonington when I was there (June).  You can see them in front of the yellow house and a few other locations.  I didn’t want them to be too obvious, but I wanted to at least hint at them.

I was happy witht the way the painting came out and I’m feeling more confidant in making major changes or even working without a reference.  I took a lot of photos and am using them as a PowerPoint demo for my zoom class.

After I finished the commission, I decided to do some 18 x 18s for Jud Hartmann’s gallery in Blue Hill, Maine.  I sold four paintings in 2021 and havent’ sent him anything new in some time.  I decided to stick with my recent 18 x 18 format but use Lux Archival and not the prepared surfaces.  I was reminded of my 12 x 12 Port Clyde fog paintings that I did in 2012 and decided to revisit them.

Port Clyde in Fog, #1

The first one is a picture with lots of lobster crates.  I’ve made them into more of a solid shape.  I struggled with the values in both this and the subsequent painting, not having done fog in some time.  I ended up making this painting much lighter than the original 2012 painting.  And I added trees behind the houses at left that weren’t there.  This painting involved input from some of the members here at Fox Hill!  It was interesting sharing my process with them.  My goal was to have the eye travel around the foreground to the left and over to the little building at right.  This is a painting with a defining shape around which everything is organized–the water.  I liked having that.

Port Clyde in Fog, #2 before flowers added

Port Clyde in Fog, #2, 18 x 18, Lux Archival

Then I began the second one which didn’t have any lobster crates and instead had flowers against the water.  I decided to focus on the right side with the flowers and have the buildings in the upper left.  But when I thought I was finished, I realized that I had two separate paintings with no connection!  It was terrible!  So, I brought flowers up on the left to over lap the buildings, lightened the piers, and now I think I have a unified painting.  (I’m currently teaching a zoom class on composition so it was fun sharing this stuggle with them.)

Now I have to get them to Maine!  Fortunately my framer found beautiful 18 x 18 gold plein air frames from Omega that look really wonderful on them.  The paintings are predominantly blues and violets (not so obvious from these photos) and the gold is stunning with them.

For both paintings, I began by toning the paper with a yellow green irredescent acrylic ink, which warmed them up and you can see this in the photos.  Very little shows through but it was just enough.  The pictures look kind of weak in the photos, I have to say, but they look really wonderful in the frames!

One more for Maine in a separate post.

Olympic Firs, 24 x 18, UART 320

Olympic Firs, Underpainting

Drawing

I’ve been very remiss in posting my blog as of late.  It’s been a very busy spring.  In April, I gave up my studio and moved everything here. Fortunately, I have a lovely space to paint in.  In addition to that, I got rid of my bathtub and now have the pastel cabinet in there. And the guest bathroom doubles as my retail shop for cards and such!!!  Just made a sale and have someone coming next week.  So, you never know!

My first painting done in the lovely art room downstairs was a commissioned piece for my piano teacher and his wife–mainly his wife. She is from Seattle and wanted something with tall evergreens.  I found 4 x 6 color photos from our trip to the Olympic Penninsula in the 90’s.  I had a picture of the distant mountains, one of trees, and another of wildflowers. But none had a composition.  So I did a drawing and put it all together.  I’m getting to be pretty good at that!  I delivered it yesterday and they were delighted.   Here are the drawing, underpainting and finished painting.

The most difficult part was the distant hillsides just below the peaks of the mountains.  Getting the color and value right was a challenge and also making the hills different enough and not all the same.  Fortunately, pastel is very forgiving and I finally got it to my satisfaction.

My original intent (as you can see from underpainting) was for a solid band of white topped flowers running to the right of the large tree.  But I really disliked it and broke it into singlular flowers, such as Queen Anne’s lace.  I was much happier.  The foreground of chickory and path came from a photo from Revelstoke , BC taken during another trip.  But I really liked putting in the blue chickory to bring the blue of the sky into the foreground.

They were delighted with the painting and now Leander wants one from New England!  I have a few of those!!!

Olympic Firs, 24 x 18, UART 320