Evergreen Barn #5

This post will show about  99% complete. I’ll still tweek a little here and there but mostly what you see is the finish of Evergreen Barn. It came together very well. A long day painting is worth it when I’m on a roll. 🙂

A great example of monitor color blindness. The foreground color appears a dark reddish brown on my monitor but is actually a mixture of Burnt Sienna and Sap Green. It covers well in the progression so I guess we’re ok.

These blue areas are to be flowers. Flax. I wanted some variety in color in the foreground and this will provide a great contrast in color as well as add a nice glow in the shadow. It’s a mixture of Ultramarine Blue, a tiny bit of Bright Red and Titanium White.

These colors in the foreground area are pretty much the same group of colors found in the mountain side. They’re just a little darker value and I added a little more blue to the darkest spots. The area is a bit cooler at the top of the rise and warmed up some as it comes forward to show some depth in a relatively short foreground.

A little work on the Flax done with the same blue as above just with more white. Then a couple of hours in the mid distance brings Evergreen Barn to near complete.

I may do a little more work on the barn but it’ll be minimal and perhaps a little more texture in the foreground. It’s time to get out the worry rag and spend a couple of days looking the painting over and deciding what the heck.

EW

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Evergreen Barn #4/What a sky!

Monitors are notorious for being off color. I don’t think I’ve seen two of them show the same intensity of color or a like value. Of course I’m probably a little picky being an artist and being concerned with those things but…..if I need to show someone exactly how something looks I’m  taking my chances sending through cyber space.  And I really want to show you this sky the way it shows on my easel.

But we are taking chances and here it is. White, Ultramarine Blue, a touch of Bright Red  some Yellow Ochre with and a very light touch of Cadmium Orange in the upper right corner where the light is coming from. My sky is warmest and most bright nearest the light and coolest on the far left. I fooled around for quite a while before coming up with the shadow color for the cloud. I needed it warmer than the sky but it needed

 

to be cooler than what I had in mind for the sunlit portion of the cloud.

The color for the lightest and brightest of the cloud turned out to be a mixture using every warm color on my palette and Titanium White. ( I see white as being the coolest) I used Cadmium Yellow Pale, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Orange and Bright Red mixed up one way or another and in some magical way this cloud appeared and is there to stay. I wish I had done a video of this part of the painting. Some information is just worth keeping. 🙂

And that was a day or so ago and since then my muse and I have had some sort of meeting of the mind and as a result I can put up a nearly finished painting in my Saturday Night Blog!

Yer gonna love this!

EW

Evergreen Barn #3

The latest from Evergreen Barn.

 My biggest challenge was to paint what “looks” like a huge hill side covered with trees and not get caught up in the details. I worked from right to left across the mountain side sculpting the basic shapes of the mountain,  lightening areas and trying to (with as few strokes as possible) make it look like there’s a gazillion pine trees back there. The photo above shows a sort of progression as I painted my way across the canvas. The peak far right and the center peak are nearly finished and the peak far left is still pretty much flat.

Then I painted on to the left edge and finished that open rocky area. Several times along the way I wiped some areas back to the canvas (yep,way too dark from the initial lay in) and repainted with a warmer, lighter green using ultramarine blue and cadmium yellow at times and other times just  sap green. There is a lot of cadmium orange, yellow ochre and bright red mixed into the greens to simulate the early morning light. I purposely touched the roof line of the barn with the dark green behind to help bridge a gap between the foreground and back ground. This is a stage I can’t let dry too much as I need a wet edge on the top line of the mountain when I lay in the sky. A soft edge is needed to help me put it all into the distance so I’d best get crackin!!

There’s a limitless bunch of ways to put these colors to use but they’re pretty close to way I’ve mixed them  for Evergreen Barn.

“Sun Rise on Fall River” #2 is the painting I’m using as a rough color guide for Evergreen Barn. You’ll see a lot of the mixtures from the palette above in both paintings. Sun Rise on Fall River just came home from one of my galleries. Just in the nick of time too. I’ve put it up where I can follow along with it’s color scheme and I get to enjoy it in the process.

Soon,

Eldon

The Evergreen Barn #2

I started here with the barn so I could lay in some approximate color and value. This being the focal point I wanted to be able to adjust value later behind the barn and having the barn already done would be my guide to doing that. I may have to lighten the barn and/or darken the back ground to get the effect I want.

Working at laying in the “S” curve into the composition I’ve dropped a very dark green into the mountain area. It’s probably way to dark at this point but it gives me a place to start in the back ground. I know it’ll have to lighten considerably before we’re done but it’s easier to lighten a dark value than it is to try to darken a light one.

It’s a bit hard to see too because the paint is so wet I had a hard time getting the shine off the surface for the camera.  As it dries and I work into it a bit more that area will be easier to see.

G-nite!  🙂

EW

The Evergreen Barn

I’ve been commissioned to paint this old barn near Evergreen and thought it would be fun to “blog as ya go” with it. These photos show a bit of the preparation and planning process, including a really rough Notan. Notan referes to the dark light pattern in a painting.

I’ve seen Notan done so completely every value in the piece has been planned out. I like them  a little bit less refined leaving room for the painting process to dictate some of the value patterns as I go.

I’ve prepped the canvas with “Eldon Orange”. (Cad Orange) I mixed a bunch of it up with thinner and poured it on then spread it around with a plastic bag as a rag would have just soaked it all up. It took a couple of days longer to dry than I had thought but finally it’s dry enough I can paint over the orange and not pick it up into the new layers of paint.

And this is the start. I’ll be working to a predetermined color scheme and some of this under painting is going to shine through into the finished piece. I took the photo I’ll be using for reference at about 6:00 A.M so the color of the light was a pretty strong yellow orange. The orange under painting should re-enforce that.  I’ll be posting every few days until we’re finished.   I’m going to have a lot of fun doing this one.     So…. cross yer fingers everyone.  Here we go!

Eldon

It aint over till it’s over…

and it looks like it’s not gonna be over till Monday. As much as we’d have liked to see it finished today there’s more than a days work here. Oh well!  Monday’s good too!

But! I’m thinkin the condition of my house isn’t all that exciting so this one photo is all I’m puttin in for right now. Maybe I’ll do a “finished, thank God!” picture later but for this post I have a way old progression of a way sold and gone 30×40 landscape. One of my favorites.

This was done with a burnt sienna under painting and drawing before “Eldon Orange” <—- (So named by my friend Dawn.) came into the picture. Burnt Sienna works just as well. The stuff that shows through in the finished piece is nice and warm just not as bright as the orange.

The palette was probably the same but there may have been, from the looks of the piece, some Alizarin Crimson on there as well. For those following who don’t know my palette, here tis. Titanium White, Cad Yellow Pale, Cad Orange, Bright Red, UltraMarine Blue and Sap Green. Visitors to my palette are Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre Pale and Alizarin Crimson. Once in a great while, Cad Red.

The Cad Orange is a great color to neutralize a green. I use the Sap Green way too much and I also mix a green with the blue and yellow. The orange puts the green nicely into a neutral position. A touch of Bright Red works great too and gives a little warmer green.

Green! Ewwww! There was a time I actually nearly hated green. It’s hard! I struggled with it every time I put a brush in it. I’d avoid it as much as possible and it avoided me. Me and green didn’t ride in the same car.

Then one day I’m riding along. I’m rubber neckin and looking at all those different shades of green and, thanks to who knows what,  noticed their differences. I’m thinking,…..that’s a yellow green, …..that’s a red green, …..there’s a silver green and a blue green….so on and so on. I made it a habit and after a while I could identify a green and mix a reasonable representation of what I was seeing out in front of me. Finally green and I had come to terms. I know now what a cool green is and what it takes to mix a warm green but until I finally opened my eyes and looked it was chaos!!! Now I boss the green around!!!

Who wants to see a post with a bunch of green paint mixed warm and cool? I think I’m running the progression thing into the ground anyway and maybe it’d be good to change directions with the blog for a while. Let me know.  🙂

Eldon

Old One New One

This weeks painting. (Actually it’s one of three.) I didn’t get the progression on this one because I had to share the camera. Debra got to spend three days in Vail so the camera was away doing other things. Lucky girl, I had to work.

When finishing this one up it reminded of a painting I’d done five or six years ago. I called it Bear Creek August. Its the same size, 16×20, as the new one above and after spending quite a bit of time searching for it and getting it dug out I thought everyone might enjoy comparing.  I just found it interesting to see a painting from the past and a painting just done  have so much in common when I thought I’d changed so much. Is this new one a throw back or was Bear Creek August ahead of it’s time. Probably neither and probably it makes no difference.  They are what they are and I’m happy with both of them.

Below is the start of some Iris. I’ll post the finish next week. For now (once I get this sent) I’m heading up to sleep. This weather, I think, makes me tired.  🙂

EW