color study in oil

I've been painting exclusively in pastel since January so it was fun to work in oil again. This is a color study for a larger work. By the time I get ready to do the larger work from this study, I'll probably be back to pastel. This painting is 7.87 x 10 inches on panel. It will be for sale in the auction at Daily Paintworks tomorrow with a starting price of $30.

 Oil Study #1 is sold

oil or dirt?

Oil paint or dirt? With rain expected tomorrow, dirt wins!

life on the edge

The working title for this piece was "Rivulet" but it ended up titled "Life on the Edge" for the stream bank and for my sanity in painting it. A difficult subject with so many elements that could be attention focal points. I had to pick and choose what to play up, what to subdue.

This painting may be my last for a while because a huge pile of garden soil was delivered today and I have a new greenhouse, big empty pots for the deck and a vegetable and flower garden waiting.

The color study for this painting is on the Daily Paintworks Auction until April 24th. I always appreciate hearing from followers and subscribers to this blog and thanks to all who comment and "like" my work on my Facebook page.

90% there

This painting has been full of challenges. I want the focus to be on the stream or rivulet but the bank is actually more interesting than the water. I want to include the blue wildflowers but they can't be so detailed that they compete or distract from the bank and the water. Back and forth, back and forth.

To complicate matters, the little study is a vertical scene (5.75 x 4.5 inches) and the finished painting is square because I washed off an old painting to use the surface and frame again. I'm getting there but there are still many decisions to make. You can see the color study using a cool magnifier here.

I'm working on the focal point of this painting first, tentatively titled "Rivulet," with the small color study as my guide. As paintings are completed, they are framed and entered into exhibitions or go to one of the galleries that represent me. The small color studies are much more affordable and are available matted to 10 x 8, ready to frame, on Daily Paintworks.

 For the first time, I was sad to wash off an old painting because the majority of this painting "worked". It is my eleventh rework of 2012; my quest to rid  the studio of mediocre work. Sitting atop the old painting is the little color study for the new painting.

 This is the ghost of the original painting on Wallis paper, after the hose-off. The black lines are the charcoal sketch for the new painting.

 The oil palette for the new underpainting.

The oil-wash underpainting is complete and is drying overnight, awaiting pastel.

It was interesting painting an October scene and the last golden sunlight of a year when in reality, it is April and we are just coming into spring with a totally different kind of light. This is "Last Light," 12.5 x 12.5 inches, pastel on paper.

I'm putting the finishing touches on "Last Light." This image shows a slice of the color study on the left (5.75" high) and the same area of the finished painting on the right (12.5" high). As mentioned in my previous post, the finished painting has much more detail and though I'm happy with it, the little color study has areas I prefer when comparing the two. For example, I love the blue green at the base of the fir tree in the study and for some reason I chose to play that down in the finished painting. I also like the bluer purple by the flowers in the study but I notice the finished painting is warmer there but cooler above the yellow tree. Oh, oh, I'm rambing...

I'll finish the larger painting this weekend and will post it then.

to detail or not?

I love doing a little color study for each new painting because it helps me narrow down the color palette to create the mood of the painting-story I'm telling. These little studies are fresh and loose.

Because the larger painting is just that...larger...it also ends up more detailed, probably because there is just more physical space for me to finesse the scene. I love the detail but it results in a lack of the spontaneity of the little study and I'll have to decide if that is OK with me. See the two examples above: the top one is the little color study and the bottom slice is the finished painting. You can see (and buy) the study on Daily Paintworks until Saturday, April 14.

This is the color study for my next painting, "Last Light."  The scene is Leavenworth, Washington in October. My "painting-story" is about the last light of the day and the last sunlight of the season as it spills across a woodland meadow. Through the color study, I've narrowed my palette down to these pastel colors for the finished painting. The little study is on Daily Paintworks Auction starting at $20.

in the nick of time

I finished "Stony Path" today, just in the nick of time because the little color study I've been using as reference sold on the Daily Paintworks Auction today. I may paint this path again in summer when there is sun but I love the muted colors and wet, shiny foliage of this scene in the darker days of fall and winter.

working on it

Time for a value check so I photographed my painting-in-progress and turned the image into a grayscale (shown here half and half).  I continue to consult my little color study as I paint (shown at bottom right).

We spent the weekend preparing for our little greenhouse delivery and weeding the vegetable and flower gardens. We're working in mud because of all the rain we've had. Shortly my thoughts will turn to gardening and though I will paint for a couple hours each morning, posting to this blog and paintings for sale on Daily Paintworks may slow down.