Lunar Triad

 Now that I have finished the series for my upcoming solo show at the Abend Gallery I thought that I would get on with some paintings to take to IX in October and fancied doing another Star Wars Tatooine panorama. Luckily I was doing some research and discovered that it it has three moons in addition to the two suns so that was a perfect theme for this painting. It is quite evident here that it is not much of a jump for me to go from an Orientalist desert scene with a mosque and minarets to a Tatooine Science Fiction landscape - the building style is Futuristic Mosque just as the architecture in the movies is a version of Islamic North Africa where they were filmed. The deceptively simple sky took a long while to paint as it is made up of glazes which I kept adding to until I was happy with the light.

Oil on canvas 31 1/2' x 12".

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

 

Lunar Triad - stage 9

 Painted in the foreground rocks at left and made a start on the buildings/space port ready to hopefully finish tomorrow. Glad I've managed to get some variation of colour in the landscape.

Lunar Triad - stage 8

 Managed to paint in the landscape at right with some variation in colour that I wanted and will now move on to the landscape in the left corner before I finish with the buildings/space port. I guess the sky is finished.... maybe.

Lunar Triad - stage 7

 Just had a couple of days away from painting so glad to get back to it today. I decided to work on the central section of the landscape first whereby I worked out the colours to use which I will now continue with for the rest of the painting - basically bringing in a kind of blue into the highlights that aren't picking up the sunlight. This gave me the variation in colour that I was looking for...

New colours used: Pale Violet and Naples Yellow.

Lunar Triad - stage 6

 I may well tweak the sky as I go along but it's good enough for me to be able to start on the landscape now so today I managed to paint in the background. Good to stop here so that I can evaluate the colours I'm using etc as I will be away from the studio tomorrow and will get back to it on Wednesday.

New colours used: Manganese Violet, Brilliant Pink and Yellow Lake Deep.

Lunar Triad - stage 5

 Still faffing around with the sky after I realised that the area near the horizon was too dark for when it came to painting the landscape so changed it today. Nearly there, should be able to make a start on the distant mesas even if the sky is still maybe not quite finished.

Lunar Triad - stage 4

 God glazes are slow going! I gave the sky a second pass of yellow and gave the landscape a blue/violet wash but unfortunately the yellow wasn't dry enough to start on the orange/pink washes later in the afternoon. It will be worth it in the end because only glazes can give you one colour shining through another which is what I want but unfortunately I can't get on with the landscape until the sky is finished...