Wonder, 18″ x 24″, UART 320

Underpainting stage 1

Underpainting stage 2

Painting, first stage

Painting 2nd stage

It’s been some time since I’ve posted new paintings and now I have two to share with you–my first paintings of 2019.  I’ll use  separate posts.  This one is the second painting in my new series that I’m calling “Local Wonders” (thank you Sunny!)   It’s another painting from Lake Frank in Rockville. (For those in the area, we approached the lake from Meadowside Nature Center, so this is not near the tree that I painted in Grace.)  It was another cold day with low light and most of what we saw was pretty brown!  But then we got to the lake, and what I saw was a row of ducks kicking up a wake which was catching the sun. Quite wonderful!  And thus, the title.

There wasn’t much drawing involved with this one, obviously!  Just a large shape of trees with reflections below.  I opted for a warm underpainting with the idea that it might glow from behind (which it actually does).  I used a lot of Ludwigs and almost a whole stick of “eggplant” on this painting.  It’s all blues and violets with no other colors.  However, it still wasn’t very straightforward.  I thought I was finished when I took the photo labelled “Painting, first stage.”  What I saw immediately was that the background trees and reflection were way too light.  So I brushed it off, darkened it, and that became “Painting, 2nd stage.”  I thought I was done.

The painting as it was at this point was on the easel for our January openings.  Several people came in and weren’t sure what the yellow line was.  I had to admit that it was disappointing to me. I thought I would have done better with a 16 x 20.  Then my former studio neighbor, Scott, came in and he mentioned something about a “V”.  Bingo!  Ducks swim in a V!!!  When I looked carefully at the photo I could see that there were two lines of ducks, pretty close together.  I brushed it off, added another line, more obviously apart from the first than in the photo, and everyone who came in after that knew exactly what it was!  I think that it looks more complete now and I’m not upset with the size of the picture.

I have to say that this is not a favorite painting.  Too much dark perhaps and not enough interest. But it got good comments on Facebook, so who knows. Someone actually asked me whether using violet was something new for me!  I wasn’t sure if this was serious or not! Anyway, I’m happy to share it’s progression with you.