Summer Greens, 20″ x 16″, UART 320

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting done with gamsol

Partially completed painting

This past week I really was in the mood for pure landscape, after completing 5 paintings from Dupont Circle!  I took a walk with my cell phone past a small glade of woods I frequently pass. The light was beautiful and I took a number of pictures.  I really liked this scene with the path, the strips of light and shadow and the soft blues overhead.

I was also in the mood for doing a better underpainting.  I decided to use a combination of violets, reds, oranges, and pinks under the greens.  Then I decided that it would be nice to use something other than straight alcohol as a solvent.  I found four cans of different solvents in my home closet and decided to do a test.  I’ll do a separate post for the test. I opted for Gamsol for this painting.  It set the pastel into the paper nicely and it dried quickly.  I think it also retained more of the brilliance of the pastel than regular isopropyl alcohol does.

For this painting, I used primarily Blue Earth pastels–the ceruleans and blues, greens, and turquoise.  Used Girault for the branches and for the detail in the bottom.  What I loved was the way the Blue Earth layer on the 320 UART.  Using a soft touch and close values, you can really produce nuanced color–and that’s what a scene like this is all about!

I was worried about the complexity of the subject but I worked from what was underneath or behind to what was in front.  So I began the upper left with a light blue and the upper right with darker blues.  Then I put the lighter and darker greens on top, letting the blue areas show through.  I tried various colors for the sky holes and finally used one of the lightest cerulean whites.  It was in the gray column so it had warmth to it and it seemed to be just right.  The light yellow was too yellow, and the Girault light yellow just didn’t go on as well.  So this very light blue worked perfectly.

The trees in the center are covered in Kudzu.  There is a large blue tree in the back, and the center set of bushes has kudzu vines in sunlight.  It forms a rather nice blanket on the tops of the bushes (but its probably killing them!!!)  I used the darkest blue Blue Earth to lay in the initial color for this, as you can see in the partially completed shot.  I could then put in a dark turquoise (cool green) and gradually add lighter colors.

The foreground was probably the most challenging part.  Getting the angle right helped a lot.  The light area in the middle was easy but as the sunlight cancelled out the detail.  But the bottom was more of a challenge.  I began by layering in various colors of Blue Earth then I went over that with linear strokes of Giraults to give the sense of grasses in shadow.  This worked quite well.

I really enjoyed doing this painting. Years ago I would have been scared to tackle something like this but somehow it’s become pretty instinctive!