Skyline - stage 5

Something bugged me about the sky so I worked on it a bit more today by putting more smaller ones as the original cloud shapes were too heavy and dominating.
After that I prepared the sign for the lettering and worked on the landscape, trying to keep it relatively monochromatic to contrast with the colourful sky.

Skyline - stage 4

Finished off the sky pretty much barring a few tweaks later and then roughed in some more tonal colour into the landscape keeping the colours based around violet. I want the landscape to be relatively monochromatic to counter the fairly colourful sky. Still not sure if I want some tail lights of cars on the road or to keep it deserted.

Skyline - stage 3

First colour pass on the sky. Colours used were: Prussian Blue, Kings Blue Light, Ultramarine Violet,  Pale Violet, Permanent Orange, Yellow Lake Deep, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Lemon Yellow, Zinc White and Warm White. 
I then gave the buildings and land another coat of the Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet mix with a rag.

Skyline - stage 2

Tonal underpainting stage using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin applied with a rag and a flat brush. I might change my mind about having some car tail lights on the road and keep it deserted, I'll decide later.
I forgot to mention that this is the second painting of this location, the first one was called "Vaughn" but looking back at it now I don't like it very much! Way too garish colour just for starters. I notice that I used a different motel sign in the foreground.

Vaughn

Skyline - stage 1

Carrying on from the last picture this is another painting in The Big Sky series that won't be having an ominous sky. This one will be an evening sky over an old motel ("Skyline Motel")  quite dark in the dusk light with the taillights of some cars on the road. The location is Vaughn in New Mexico which I think is on Route 66 like the last picture. I usually try to avoid obvious Americana but... couldn't resist dipping my toes in that water for this one.
This is the first stage where I have "drawn" it up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin.

Chambers

Bearing in mind the current climate of fear and paranoia I will lay off the threatening/ominous skies and do something softer and less threatening. I have chosen a petrol/gas station out in the boonies of Arizona and wanted the feel of getting towards the end of a hot afternoon out in the desert. Chambers is a loose collection of buildings just off Route 66 in Arizona, the building at the right sells American Indian artifacts (not sure what tribe). This is another in my series of American landscapes called The Big Sky. At some point when I have enough I am happy with I will approach some US galleries (if there are any left at the end of all this) and see if I can get some interest.
Oil on linen 20" x 16".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting including what colours I used in previous posts on this blog.

Chambers - stage 3

Actually it's really stage 4 as I forgot to post what I did yesterday! As you can see I've been working on the buildings and landscape trying to get the lighting effect I want, a low afternoon sun just hitting the top half of the petrol station. The next post will be the finish as it won't look vastly different to this.
Colours now being used: Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Cadmium Yellow light, Yellow Lake Deep, Indian Yellow, Permanent Orange, Naples Yellow, Brilliant Pink, Manganese Violet, Winsor Violet, Pale Violet, Permanent Sap Green and Warm White -  mostly Michael Harding paints.

Marrakech Medina sold

Pleased to see that people are still buying paintings, "Marrakech Medina" has just sold to a buyer in New York. Apparently she had Googled Marrakech Medina and this painting came up in the search.
It's loosely based on a photo I had taken there in 1986 and is one of my older paintings when I was working on mdf board. 18 1/2" x 18 1/2". 
Also pleased to see that FedEx are still working relatively normally to deliver the painting!

Chambers - stage 2

First colour pass on the sky. I want this to look like the later part of a hot afternoon but it won't make much sense yet until I get in the foreground.
The colours I used were: Kings Blue Light, Pale Violet, Manganese Blue, Permanent Orange, Brilliant Pink, Naples Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Zinc White and Warm White.

Chambers - stage 1

Taking into account the current climate of fear and paranoia I will lay off the threatening clouds (for a while) and do something softer and less threatening, a petrol station out in the boonies of Arizona on a dusty late afternoon. I'm after a particular warm feeling to this one which somehow reminds me of holidays (remember them?) in hot climates about five in the afternoon as the sun gets lower in the sky and a lovely yellow/pink light suffuses the landscape... Egypt comes to mind.
Chambers is the name of the small group of buildings in Arizona just off Route 66.
This is the tonal underpainting stage where it was first "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin in the morning session, then in the afternoon I put in the tone with a rag and brush using the same paint mix.

County Road

This one took longer to finish than usual as I have been a bit distracted by Covid 19 and had things to sort out first before getting back to this. This is the second painting of this location, the first was called "Idalou" as it is near a small town in Texas called Idalou but I was never really happy with it despite it being the subject of an article I wrote for Artists & Illustrators magazine at the time. 
Following on from the previous painting that I was trying to get a feeling of depth and space into I thought that I would like to try it again with a painting of a lonely house in the middle of a featureless landscape and this location would be ideal. At this point I must add that this picture is not some comment on our self isolation amidst the storm of Covid 19, the timing is coincidental but I can see that it could be... I must have been unconsciously channeling the zeitgeist!
It is based around violet with it's complementary yellow popping up occasionally, the violet being varied by going toward the blue or red side of it accordingly. 
There is a step-by-step progress though this painting including what colours I used in previous posts on this blog.
Oil on linen 30" x 20".

County Road - stage 5

The right hand side of the sky bothered me and I worked out that the shapes of large areas of cloud needed breaking up so I painted in some nearer dark clouds and broke up the horizontal white distant cloud too. I then painted in some transparent violets and yellow/greens into the landscape in readiness for tomorrow.

County Road - stage 4

Finished the sky barring some tweaks later on and put some colour into the landscape. The landscape will have to have plenty of dark relatively rich colour in it for the sky to work methinks...

County Road - stage 3

First colour pass on the sky today using mixes of Pale Violet, Ultramarine Violet, Winsor Violet, Permanent Orange, Brilliant Pink, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Zinc White and Warm White. Hoping to base the whole painting around violet. The sky looks a bit heavy at the moment but hopefully it will look less so when I get the landscape in.

County Road - stage 2

The tonal underpainting stage using the same mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin applied with a rag for the sky and a couple of Flat brushes for the landscape. I changed my mind about the colours and indeed the sky over my breakfast coffee this morning although I am keeping the dark sky at the horizon.
Incidentally you will see that the canvas was sagging a bit on the stretcher in stage 1 so I sprayed the back of the canvas with soapy water and it tightened up nicely overnight.

County Road - stage 1

I have actually painted this location before when I titled it "Idalou" as it is near the small town called Idalou in Texas but I was never happy with it (even though I wrote an article about it for Artists & Illustrators magazine at the time) and am happy to return to it for a better stab at it now that I have improved my skies since then. I want to try and get across the loneliness of this little house amidst the  vast space of the Texan landscape. To this end I am going to set it against a brooding stormy sky with the house and landscape picking up some low sunshine against the darkness behind. As a change from the earlier two paintings I'm seeing this one as relatively monochromatic in brown/violets and pinks and oranges but will not be painted in the way I was doing the monochromes earlier in the year.
For this stage I "drew" it up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and erasing any faulty lines with a rag dipped in turpentine.

Ham Rock

Following on from "General Store" I am staying in the South West of America this time in the Arches National Park in Utah where Ham Rock can be found. I am using similar colours to the last painting but I wanted a greater sense of distance in this one so chose a lone rock against a landscape with clouds receding into the distance ending in a rain storm near the horizon. This is another painting in my The Big Sky series and I suppose I was looking for a John Ford Western kind of look but without using the Monument Valley backdrop.
I have slightly changed the landscape to make the Rock look larger than it really is for pictorial reasons, these paintings are about mood and scale and are not meant to be topographically exact to the location. 
Oil on linen 30" x 20".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting including colours used in previous posts on this blog.

Ham Rock - stage 5

Still going along fairly carefully with this, determining where the areas of light and shade are going to be and have now brought the left foreground forward by making a bigger difference in scale of the bushes to give it more depth. Anyone who knows this place will see that that I am making it look bigger than it really is. Might finish it tomorrow, we'll see. This will be the last post on the blog until the finish.

Ham Rock - stage 4

Worked a bit more on the clouds and indeed I still feel they might need to be broken up a bit - I will decide over tomorrow morning's breakfast coffee.
I have started working on the Rock itself and a bit of the surrounding landscape. I an realising that I need to move cautiously at first on this as the contrast and colour are going to be the keys to this painting's success or failure.

Ham Rock - stage 3

Pretty much finished the sky barring a few tweaks later on if it needs to harmonise with the landscape better. I think the line of cloud ending with the rain storm in the distance gives it a fair amount of depth. The main thing is to give the landscape receding areas of light and shadow  to which end I have gave it a second layer of the Burnt Sienna/Winsor Violet mix when I started to work out which areas will be in light and shade. I have decided to change the foreground landscape a bit to give it a better composition (a diagonal across the left side of shadow). I might have the top of the Mesa in shadow from the overhead cloud, I will decide over my morning coffee tomorrow.

Ham Rock - stage 2

First colour pass on the sky for "Ham Rock". I am using the same colours so far as " General Store": Kings Blue Light, Ultramarine Violet, Pale Violet, Permanent Orange, Zinc White, Warm White and Lead Tin Yellow Lemon. Hoping I can get a good sense of distance in this...

Ham Rock - stage 1

Following on from "General Store" I thought that I would revisit the American South West and do a pure landscape using what I learnt from that previous painting. Ham Rock is in the Arches National Park in Utah and am hoping to get a good sense of space and depth to try and get across the dramatic landscape and Big Sky - yes it's another The Big Sky painting. 
Although I'm based in the UK I'm afraid that the British Landscape doesn't really interest me that much and much prefer the vastness that can be found in the USA and I suppose if I do more of these I could show it to galleries who sell this sort of work in the USA...
This stage was first "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using my usual mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet (Dioxazine) thinned with Liquin and Lukas Number 5 Medium so that it dried quickly enabling me to apply the tone with a rag using the same paint mix in the afternoon session.

General Store

Escaping the Stygian gloom of "The Vampires Of Venice" series I stumble into the light of the desert lands of South West America with another "The Big Sky" painting. The work I have been doing with monochromes is now being incorporated into the American landscapes that I will be painting, this being the first one. All of the landscape in "General Store" is based on a monochrome underpainting but this time there is a lot more showing through than I used to have. This now links up the land and buildings in a more satisfying way, indeed I had originally planned to have all the landscape in much darker shadow using lots of opaque paint but when I had got to the stage where the sky was finished I really liked the quality that the land had against it purely as a monochrome. I resolved then to keep the dusty pink general colour it all had and subtly worked colour into that instead of my original plan of much darker colour. I think it has a nice quality of light which I am going to develop in future paintings, indeed I might go back to some recent trial "The Big Sky" paintings and rework them nearer to this look.
The location is near Death Valley in California.
Oil on linen 30" x 20".
There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting including what colours I used in previous posts on this blog.