Richmond Park - stage 3

 Worked on the foreground trees today using the same colours as yesterday. As usual it looks too fantasy, I'm trying to get away from that look but I think it's the colours I have chosen; for a start it's too colourful and it's not really about what I was trying to get better at - foliage etc. The next painting will hopefully be nearer to what I'm after, I need to get much closer to a plant. small tree whatever so that it looks more observed and less generic as this one does. People might like this picture but it isn't really what I was trying to achieve.

Richmond Park - stage 2

 I decided on a red/orange - green/blue colour complementary as whilst roughly painting in the subdued greens in the background I liked the way that the tree trunks glowed against it. After some deliberation I decided to go for the complementary but the next step is to break up the reds of the tree trunks with shadows so that they better integrate into the picture.

Colours used were: Kings Blue Light, Ultramarine Violet, Winsor Violet, Permanent Sap Green, Chrome Green Deep Hue, Emerald Green, Bright Green Lake, Permanent Orange, Burnt Sienna, Yellow Lake Deep, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Zinc White and Warm White.

Richmond Park - stage 1

 

Continuing with painting more foliage and trees etc for a while this one will be hopefully quite dramatic when I start to get the colour down. I lived in Richmond many years ago and often walked in the extensive Richmond park nearby, in fact sometimes I walked through to Wimbledon Common which you can do once you cross a road, it's pretty much continuous. Planning on thicker paint with a bit more texture than normal... but we'll see, these paintings seem to have a will of their own!

This is the tonal underpainting stage which was first "drawn up" with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna, Transparent Oxide Red and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin and then the same paint mix was applied with a rag when the "drawing" was dry in the afternoon

Oil on linen 22" x 16"

Autumn Leaves

 Huh, quite prophetic, as I write this in August the weather outside is distinctly Autumnal today as Storm Francis moves through. This was meant to be about brushing up skills on painting trees, foliage etc but as is often the case the painting had it's own plans on where it wanted to go. It did at least get some thicker paint applied and I suppose I did get on with painting branches etc but it has come out a lot more fantasy than I intended, probably through the colours and lighting I used. It reminds me of a Brothers Hildebrandt Lord of the Rings illustration probably because I used the colour theory in the same way.

I like the painting but it didn't go where I intended...

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

There is a short step-by-step progress through this painting in previous posts on this blog.

Autumn Leaves - stages 1 & 2

 

Following on from the last painting I am brushing up my skills on trees, leaves etc. When I had finished stage 1 I was tempted to paint it my usual way with transparent paint and work it up as a monochrome, safe territory but I ain't gonna learn anything as I was intending to use thicker opaque paint on this one. So I looked at it this morning and decided to go with my original intention and be prepared to f*** it up as otherwise I'm not going to move forward. After all I can always do another as a monochrome if I so wish (I won't).

Stage 1 was "drawn" up with a fairly battered bristle brush using Transparent Oxide Red, Transparent Oxide Yellow and Transparent Oxide Brown all thinned with Liquin.

Stage 2 used mixes of the following colours: Prussian Blue, Winsor Violet, Permanent Orange, Bright Green Lake, Permanent Sap Green, Yellow Lake Deep, Naples Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Light, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon and Zinc White.

Oil on linen 22" x 16".

 

Snow on the Sagebrush

 Not every painting turns out OK and this is no exception. I have to remember I was trying something so it was always going to be hit and miss. I think it's neither one thing or the other, I was too timid in a way, trying to combine things that maybe don't go together. In recent paintings I have been managing to get a nice sense of distance which this doesn't have at all and the background mesas don't work against the flat sky. Also, I need to get my painting of bushes etc better, they look too generic and have no sense of something that has been looked at properly and painted accordingly.

So in short I don't like this one. But in a way it's good, I have learnt something that would have happened only if I had tried this out. I know what not to do again as well as realising that I need to brush up my skills in depicting leaves, bushes etc.

Oil on linen 20" x 16".

There is a step-by-step progress through this painting including what colours I used in previous posts on this blog.

Snow on the Sagebrush - stage 4

 I have roughed in the snow on the land after pretty much finishing the background mesas. I have also roughed in the sagebrushes and the rock at bottom left.

I am feeling my way around this one, largely because a lot of it is coming from the imagination and am having to try different colours to see how they work before proceeding. I'm leaving it like this so that I can look at it tomorrow morning over my breakfast coffee and see what I have to do next. I might for instance break up the foreground with some branches of a bush to cut across the line where the snow meets the red rock...

Tierra Grande and Pump sold

 I'm pleased to say that these two recent paintings have been sold to a collector that already has a number of mine on his walls already. Maybe I should do some more dramatic The Big Sky paintings, maybe they are more sellable if they are more dramatic?

Maybe, anyway for the moment I am going to carry on with these smaller paintings as I try some things out.

Both oil on linen 30" x 20".

 

Snow on the Sagebrush - stage 3

 The sky still needs another colour pass before it's finished. While painting the sky I gave the landscape another glaze of tone with lots of Liquin in it so it was ready to paint on this afternoon. I then put in some snow before stopping for the day as I need to look at it tomorrow and see if it's OK or not so there was no point in pressing on any further today. Still using much the same colours but with the addition of opaque Warm White and Lead Tin Yellow Lemon for the snow.

Snow on the Sagebrush - stages 1 & 2

 I haven't done a snowscape in ages so I thought it would be a nice change to do one now. I'm not sure which series this belongs in, it's not really a The Big Sky so I guess it's Roadside America. It's located in Arches National Park Utah which in the winter and despite it being in Desert Southwest does get some snowfalls over the winter. This one will be just after it has snowed and the sun is starting to break through the cloud. I will be inventing all the snow....

The first stage is the "drawing" up and tonal underpainting which was done with a small bristle brush and then a rag using a mix of Burnt Sienna and Winsor Violet thinned with Liquin.

The second stage was the first colour pass on the sky and more tone added to the landscape. Colours used were: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Permanent Orange, Zinc White and Transparent Red Oxide.

Going Home

 

I am taking a little break away from The Big Sky series as I have enough for the moment and need to address some niggling thoughts about how I need to reintroduce some aspects of how I painted say ten years ago with thicker paint and more lighting effects. So I am going to keep using purely transparent paint for the skies but try and introduce a bit more painterliness into the foreground. This one is only halfway there but it has given me the trigger for the next painting to push things further.

Rush Hour in Anywhereville USA and all the commuters are leaving town at dusk to go back home after work, a blaze of tail light reds as all the cars head home. Inspired by a car journey leaving Washington DC at dusk, this one has a lot more bustle and human activity than usual and as such I will group it with the Roadside America series.

Oil on linen 20" x 16". There is a step-by-step progress through this painting including colours used in previous posts on this blog.

Going Home - stage 3

 I pretty much finished the sky today and then roughed in some colour and tone into the rest of the picture. This really helps me to see how the lighting idea is going to work as I'm hoping to have a blaze of tail lights as though the road is full of commuters all leaving town at rush hour to go home. 

Colours used were: Brilliant Pink, Burnt Sienna, Lead Tin Yellow Lemon, Warm White  and all the colours used for the sky.

Going Home - stages 1 & 2

I have enough paintings for the moment in my The Big Sky series and have been having some niggling thoughts about the thickness of paint that I have been using and when looking at how I used to paint say ten years ago, I feel that I have lost something even though I have gained many others. So this is the first in a short (?) series of smaller trial paintings, this one being rush hour in Anywhereville USA, a line of cars leaving town to get back home after work, a blaze of red tail lights leading to a dusk sky - so I guess it must be Winter. Unusually for me these days this picture has a lot more bustle and human activity in it, I guess I'll class this one as a painting to go in my Roadside America series.

The tonal underpainting was "drawn" up with a small bristle brush using a mix of Burnt Sienna thinned with Liquin, the same mix being applied later on with a rag for the tone.

The first colour pass on the sky used mixes of the following colours: Indranthene Blue, Permanent Orange, Ultramarine Violet, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White.

Oil on linen 20" x 16".