I am struggling!!! I took a long time to get the drawing on the paper the way I wanted it. The houses are bigger than in the original drawing, but I’m happy with that. I wasn’t sure how to begin the painting so I decided to use the same color of a light, dark and mid tone Girault and put in some of the key areas. The first picture shows this.  Then I decided I’d better get started with the sky and background trees. The Giraults weren’t working!  I don’t have the right values of blues in that brand so I went to soft, in the trees as well. I was also fighting the red!   I decided to stick with an up and down stroke in the sky and liked the way that looks but it’s not done.

My other problem is with the colors in the roofs and buildings. After putting in some blue green as an intermediate shade, I decided that it would really be better with all of the greens to have warm colors in the roofs and buildings. I’m hoping I can go over them successfully with some of my Ludwigs. But right now, I’m still struggling with the background. (And it’s snowing harder than ever!!!)  BTW, I’m not sure why the surface looks so orange at the top and red at the bottom–it’s all the same color and not really orange!  Looking at the lightness of the first picture, I’m wishing I hadn’t gotten into the soft pastels so soon.  Oh well.  My cloud shapes need help also!!!

Initial layers of Girault

Soft pastel in sky and background hills

We’re snowed in again! Instead of teaching and hopefully selling a painting this afternoon, I’m in my home studio. I’ve been working on my upcoming Finding Your Style workshop in Tiverton and thinking a lot about composition and color. So I’ve decided to do a demo today and discuss my thoughts and process. Have no idea whether the results will be good or not!

Composition. In this post, I’m giving you the color photo (I also have a black and white I’ll work from) and my graphite drawing. The farm is on a hill along Route 28 on the way to Point of Rocks. There is a barn and silos further up the hill. What I love is the shape and lighting on the shed and the formation of the buildings around the house. In order to get it all in and make the picture more dramatic, I’ve placed these closer together and raised the hill.  There is  a progression leading from the long narrow building at lower left to the house and up the hill to the shed at upper right. There is a clothesline in the front of the house  in photo) that I have moved to the back and I might remove the small building obstructing its view. I have played with the background hills and wanted more of a backdrop to the shed. I’ll also add clouds but will probably do that at the point of putting pastel on paper. I find it hard to draw them in.

Value. Most of the picture is in a similar value with darks in the buildings and four areas of light that I hope will carry the eye through the picture: the long roof, the front of the house, some lights in the fields and the light on the shed. Manipulation of the value is going to be really key in this picture since so much of it is similar greens!

Color considerations. Since this is going to have a lot of greens, I decided to tone the surface with a reddish color. I used quinacridone (cool) red with a lot of umber to dull it. It’s a mid value, which I like.  I won’t be doing any kind of underpainting on top of it, so I have to have a value and color that will work throughout.  The buildings in the photo are all violet and yellows. I will probably make some changes, but will definitely keep violets in there (how could I not?!)

Reference photo

Graphite drawing (10″ x 12″)

This is a third painting that I plan to bring to Rogers Gallery in Mattapoisett in June. It’s a picture of the ever-popular Ned’s Point Lighthouse. I painted it several years ago but never framed it and the picture got damaged. Decided to do it again on my new surface and I really like the way the colors blended in the sky and foliage. And the texture gives the stucco feel of the lighthouse surface as well.  I used Giraults exclusively, except for the bottom, where I added softer greens. The warm oranges and reds  are also Girault and Ludwig. I’m loving the more refined surface that I’m able to get by using Girault. I’m not using hard pastels at all. The picture is 15 x 22 — a half sheet of the Rives. It’s a nice size but will have to be matted.

Ned’s Point at Sunset, 15 x 22, BFK Rives

I did this demo last Monday but wasn’t happy with it. First the trees were too dark and the wrong shape. Then I killed the sky!  Finally today I got it back out and added warmer color to the sky and worked some more on the trees and snow and decided to call it quits! I did a watercolor underpainting in the sky and distant field that did little for me. Used hard pastel everywhere else. The original picture was one that my husband thought was very boring, so I had the challenge of coming up with something more interesting. I’ll include the original photo with this. The main differences are fewer trees and light on the snow. I also gave more emphasis and shape to the field behind and added the fence. This is it for snow pictures!  While it is snowing now, I think I’ve had enough!  We are all ready for spring.

Winter Fields, 16 x 20, Pastelbord

Reference photo

I’m working on some paintings to bring to Rogers Gallery in Mattapoisett in June. I’ll be bringing Harbor Sunrise, so did this as a counterpoint of sunset. Will be focusing on harbor and lighthouse. For this painting, I decided to watch the surface very carefully. I’ve been finding that the use of really soft pastels too soon produces gummy-looking results that I don’t like!  I decided to try pan pastels for the sky, but found they did nothing but fill in the surface and look dull. So I used Giraults in a progression from cool to warm at the bottom. I kept to the Giraults until I got to the bottom of the painting, then used a number of violet and brown Ludwigs for the shadows of the road. The greens are all Girault. I was pleased with the results. I never felt that the surface got away from me.  I’m including the underpainting, as well, done after I finished the sky.   Since the painting would be warm, I used primarily cool colors to cover up the lighter surface. One of the other things I’ve become aware of is how I relate to the color of the surface. Some of the surfaces have been too yellow–almost mustardy (a color I hate!!!). For this one, I used the brown umber and it produced a lovely soft, neutral color that I enjoyed working over in the sky.

Sundown, Ship Street, 20 x 24, BFK Rives and Colourfix liquid primer

Hard pastel underpainting in all but sky

And now for something completely different!  Last Tues. morning we woke up to 2″ of fresh snow and bright sunshine. It was so beautiful. I wanted to go somewhere nice to take pictures but had to gallery sit and couldn’t take the time. But while driving through downtown Rockville, I saw the light and snow on a building I’ve been interested in–Bob’s Noodle 66.  I had to do it!   But it didn’t get off to a good start. Today, I was ready to chuck it or try to wash it off, but decided to give it one more go.  The colors were a lot of the problem. I was trying hard not to use red violet because of the orange roof. But I finally gave in and cooled the roof as well, flattened the background tree, and voila!  Of course, I can’t imagine that anyone other than “Bob” would want it!  But it was  a fun challenge.  The reflection in the road was what really sold me when I saw the photo. I have to admit to leaving out the two Chinese characters that were in the sign. That was beyond me!  Now to go out and enjoy the 60 degree temperature while it lasts.

Bob’s Noodle 66, 20 x 24, BFK Rives and Colourfix liquid primer

Yesterday I did the second of two snow demonstrations for my classes at Capitol Arts Network. I was more excited about the Monday demo, but I liked yesterday’s better!  It’s on a 16 x 20 mounted UART 500 board from ProArt Panels. Unfortunately, it warped a bit, and I’m hoping that my framer can flatten it, as I really like the painting.

Started out with a rather wild underpainting. I used water color for the sky and snow and hard pastel for the buildings. And I used yellow green in the sky and snow areas!  Not sure what the class thought. The different media created very different values of underpainting that I had to be careful to overcome. I ended up using nothing but blue greens and blue violets in the snow–no yellows or oranges. It gives it a unified look and the color is quite unique, I think. The warm pieces are in the buildings and in foreground grasses.  I think I need to darken one piece of roof snow (in the middle).

The foreground was the big challenge as this is quite different from the photo. I felt like I was sculpting and making it up!

I’m having problems with the blog. Can only add text if I add the photos afterwards, which places them at the bottom. Not sure what’s going on. This is the only solution I’ve figured out for the moment.  Any title ideas???

Snow demo (no title yet), 16 x 20, UART 500

Stonington Harbor, 20 x 24

I just made a few more corrections to the painting and thought I’d send them to you, along with the color photo, which I tried to include in the last post, but who knows where it went!  When I looked at the color photo, I realized that the green bush was a rosa rugosa and I immediately saw the value of adding the bright pink pieces into it.  I wasn’t happy with the background house roof and simplified it a bit. I’ve also played with adding a few warmer colors into the road. But now it’s under glassine and done!  I filmed it today on a cloudy day. Yesterday I had bright sunshine coming in, so this version might be a little washed out. However, I thought it was worth sharing again.  On Monday, I’m taking it with me to a talk I’m giving to 200 boy scouts and their parents on creativity!!!  Thought they might enjoy seeing something summery. I’ll bring the black and white photo with me, and the color and show them the difference. I’ve written my 15 minute talk and look forward to it.

Initial layers in hard pastel

Happy snow day!  We have over a foot and it’s wet, but not too bad (of course, I’m not the one doing the shoveling!).  I just finished this picture that I began in the studio on Monday. This is from a photo I took in Maine in 2009. I woke up at 4:30 thinking about potential paintings and remembered this picture. What has always stumped me about the photo is the large expanse of the road. I decided I could take care of that!  And, indeed, in going to a squarer format than the photo, it narrowed the road and gave more prominence to the house.  I used a very gold tint for the gel and I love the way it looks with aqua and violet.  I began the painting using hard pastels and basically doing warm under cool and cool under warm. I worked from the black and white photo and was really pleased when I added the orange over the cool lavender in the house roof. I put a violet over the aqua in the shaded areas and it produced a perfect grayed color. Before adding the softer pastels, I sprayed it with workable fixative (something I won’t do again at CAN!).  This morning I looked at the color photo and realized that the lobster traps are yellow and red! I added some more color to them, but didn’t really like the bright colors very much.  I was much happier with my interpretation of the traps and the roofs, color-wise.  And, I think the road expanse is just about right.  It’s really interesting how the different pastels go onto this surface. The Giraults tend to fill it in, which can be good or bad, depending on what I’m looking for. I think that the perfect pastels are the Unisons and Ludwigs because they aren’t as soft. I used my Ludwig “vibrants” set to add various reds to the roofs this morning and found it so easy to add them lightly.  Thanks to Catherine and Renata, who painted with me yesterday, and gave me helpful comments.

Stonington Harbor, 20 x 24, BFK Rives and AS Liquid primer

This is what I painted yesterday. It should look familiar! I used the same black and white photo from my first Amish Barn picture (looking east). I tried not to think of the colors I had used before and in this one focused more on blue greens and violets. I also set the sun direction as coming from the left (thank you Catherine!). One of the reasons I did this again is that I have a friend in Australia (currently sweltering) who is interested in purchasing a snowy barn picture.  One participant asked whether this represented any form of abstraction. For me it does because the focus is on shape, some of the shapes have been exaggerated (silos), and there is a minimum of extraneous detail.  It was fun doing this again. I might also think of doing part of it as a separate painting. But I need to get out and get some new barn photos!  Happy Super Bowl watching for those of you who do this sort of thing (we are still debating here!!!)
Continue reading →