Large Landscape Demo - PART IV

Well, I didn't get as much done this weekend as I had hoped, but I made a bit of progress so I'm happy. Saturday we decorated the Christmas tree and took Aspen to a Christmas party, so I didn't set foot in the studio. Luckily Nate offered to watch Aspen for a while today so that I could get a bit of painting done.

When I stopped on Friday, I had pretty much finished the mountain and hillside, so I was ready to start on the water today. The first step was to block in the main shape of dark color, so that I could work reflections down into it.

Once I had the main color/value blocked in, I started to go in and add reflections. I probably repainted this section three times before I finally decided to scrape it and start over. At the OPA show this spring, Quang Ho was doing a demo and scraped the entire eye off of the portrait after painting it in - as he scraped it he quipped that you "gotta practice non-attachment," and, "you won't learn and grow if you get attached." At this point, I had been painting for about two hours, so it was hard to scrape what I had done and start over, but that's what had to be done. This picture is right after I had scraped everything. Sorry I didn't take a picture of what it looked like before I scraped - rest assured that it wasn't working!


This time I decided to keep things simple and loose, and just barely indicate reflections where necessary so that the water wouldn't be the center of attention. I got the water to a point that I felt was working, and then went back in and fixed the shoreline, which I had previously painted too light and too prominent.


Looking at the photo above, I think that the ripples across the surface of the top of the lake are a bit too bright, and might need to be toned down a bit. They don't jump out that much in real life, but sometimes the camera points out things that need to be fixed, and I think this is one of them.

Moving on, I started to block in some of the grass and the shape of the rocks on the foreground hillside.


Before finishing for the day, I blocked in a midvalue as a base for the foregound rocks. I've only just started on the grasses, and haven't touched the trees, so things look a bit weird.


I'm hoping to finish this tomorrow. I need to refine the foreground rocks, finish the grass on the hillside, and paint the pine trees and some rocks that are out in the lake. There are also some spots on the mountain and hillside that need correcting once I'm done with everything else, and I'll probably do some work on the water too.

Today was one of those days where I managed a good 4-5 hours in the studio, and feel like the outcome only looks like an hour or so of work. I'm still not 100% happy with the water, but it's salvageable at this point. All in all a sort of frustrating day, but at least I'm set up to move on tomorrow.

Large Landscape Demo - PART III

Yesterday I finished with the middle and left hand side of the mountain, so first up today was to finish up the right hand side of the mountain (the rocky hillside coming down from the upper right). Aspen went down for her morning nap and I spent the next couple of hours struggling with this part of the painting. This particular part of the mountain is more like a big pile of rocks, and the light on it doesn't define much form, so I spent a lot of time going back and forth between the shadows and lights, trying to come up with something acceptable. I finally stopped here - the forms are a bit geometric, but the baby was awake and it was time to drive her over to my mom's house for the afternoon. Besides, it's always nice to take a break and get some fresh air when I'm struggling with something.


I returned from my mom's house and noticed that things were looking a bit dark, so I added a few light accents on the mountain. Once things are dry, I might go back and do a bit more of this, but I don't want to take it too far right now. Sometimes I think a certain part of a painting needs more contrast, but once I've finished all of the other parts, it looks fine. So I'll leave the mountains like this for now.


Next I start to fill in the shadows on the hillside below the mountains. The rocks in this area are small and scattered down the hillside, so I know it's going to be a challenge to simplify. For that reason, I start with a large brush and one value.


Once the shadows are in, it's time to block in the grass and rocks on the hillside. This takes me forever. I always struggle with the bright green color of summer grass above treeline - I get carried away with it and make it too bright. So while I'm painting this section, I probably repaint the grass five times. It's not perfect, but sometimes you gotta pick your battles, and I don't want to battle with it anymore. Besides, at this point I'm having trouble with the rocks!


So, this is the moment that Nate comes home from working in the mountains. He walks into my studio for the first time in days and says, "Cool painting. Have you done the rocks on the left hand side yet?"

Um. YES. But apparently I haven't done them well enough!

Damn.

Of course, I get all sensitive and tell him to leave if he can't say anything nice about my painting.

Then I work on the rocks for another hour because he's right. Poor guy - must be a pain to be married to a painter.

Anyhow, so here's where I ended up for the day after all that. The photo here is making it painfully obvious that the hillside rocks still aren't quite right - the color temperature of the highlights is too warm, and the shoreline is too uniform now. Gotta fix that tomorrow.


Since the pictures I've posted so far aren't too fabulous, and it's tough to see the brushstrokes, here are a couple of closeups.


I try to make sure that the abstract shapes and colors work in each area. When I paint large, I step back a lot to make sure that everything reads well from a viewing distance of about 10 feet. But even when things read well from far away, they also need to be interesting up close.


Last, here's a picture of my setup (ignore the painting - I took this right after I had blocked in the darks on the hillside, and it looks bizarre). I always paint standing up. When I was pregnant, I had to sit to paint the last few months and it drove me nuts (I even think it made my paintings worse). So, the stool is just there to keep me from getting too close to the canvas. Prevents noodling and keeps things loose. Scott Christensen and a lot of artists with fancy studio furniture put their taboret directly in front of their easels, but I use a huge workbench so that's not possible. The stool works though!



Anyhow, I think I've only got a couple days work left on this one. Hopefully I can get some more work done on it this weekend (no rest for the self-employed!).

Large Landscape Demo - PART II

So, when I stopped for the day yesterday, I was about a third of the way done with my acrylic underpainting and ready to continue on. First step today was to block in the dark accents on the rocky hillside and shoreline.


Continuing down the canvas, I block in the grass on the hillside and the surface of the lake. At this point I'm still keeping things simple. I use two values/colors for the grass, and block in the water as two large shapes without worrying about reflections.


Last, I indicate the foreground rocks, trees, and grass to finish the underpainting. This is offficially what I refer to as "the ugly stage" of my painting - the colors are a bit too bright and nothing is too refined. It's just enough for me to see where I need to go with the oils.


At this point, I had to take a break to go to the store and buy some Viva paper towels. I ran out, and the cheap kitchen paper towels just won't do for painting - I HAVE to use Viva in the studio. Actually, I really wish someone would invent a recycled paper towel that works as well as Viva - then I wouldn't have to feel so guilty about the volume of paper towels I throw away each week. Seriously.

Anyhow, now that the underpainting is done, I get to move on to the real fun! Here's my messy palette - this is about as clean as it gets. Also note my brushes that have been carelessly left in a can of mineral spirits - typical. I've been using Utrecht artist grade paints recently, and I love them. From left to right, the colors I have out are titanium white, cad yellow light, cad yellow lemon, cad orange, alizarin crimson, quinacridone red, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, a teensy tiny dot of pthalo green, and a big blob of Weber res-n-gel. I only put out a tiny dot of the pthalo green becuase I only use it when I'm painting skies. I stay far away from it when painting grass or anything green - it's way too obnoxious. The res-n-gel is an addiction of mine - it turns paint into butter. Actually, I don't use too much of it, but I like to mix it with sitffer colors to make them flow better.


So, on to the oil painting. I start with the sky as usual, and work downward. In the picture below, I've painted in the sky, and started to block in the shadows on the mountain in the middle. At this point, I'm concerned mostly with shapes. I'm using a number 9 bristle flat and working to keep things simple (as usual).


Next, I start to refine the shadows a little bit, adding in darker accents and a bit more color (sorry - these pictures aren't really good enough to show what's going on).


The next step is to fill in some of the lighter shapes on the mountain. In the picture below, I've inadvertently covered up some of the shadows, and have yet to refine the lighter areas.


Now I work back and forth at the edge of the major shapes, making them work to define the form of the mountain, and refine the color and light.


I follow the same steps as I continue downward, painting in the shadowed ridge that comes down from the upper left corner. You can see here that I'm completely covering the underpainting as I go. It may seem like an unnecessary step, but having it there provides me with a framework to build on as I refine my colors and values.


So this is where I stopped today, after about an hour's work finishing the underpainting, and 4-5 hours spent working on the sky and mountain. Unfortunately, the more oil I put on the canvas, the more glare there is in the photos - I apologize that the final picture isn't the best. I'll try to get better pictures as I work tomorrow.

Large Landscape Demo - PART I

So much for my great idea of doing some smaller painting studies - I have a stack of large canvases ready to go in the studio, and they've been calling my name recently. I just started a 30x40" landscape today, and it's going to take a while, so I figured I'd post it as a detailed demo as I go along. I apologize in advance for the bad quality photos - the light in my studio isn't optimal for photographing paintings, and I was too lazy to square them all up in photoshop.

Anyhow, the first step in doing a large painting? Finding inspiration, of course! The subject of this painting is Lake Isabelle, which is in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area near Boulder, Colorado. This is a popular Boulder area hike because it's short (2 miles one way) and beautiful, so the trail is always packed with hikers. Nate and I hiked up with Aspen back in August. Nate's back was hurting so I carried Aspen in her backpack the whole way - it was a good workout!


I'm working directly from a photo reference for this painting - I've spent a lot of time hiking in this area, so my memory serves me pretty well for the color and feel of the place.

The first step is getting the drawing down on canvas. I usually draw directly onto the canvas with thinned paint, blocking in the major shapes and refining from there; however, since this is a large painting and a popular scene, I wanted to get the drawing just right. I have a hard time eyeballing a drawing on a canvas this large, so I sketched in a grid and transferred the main shapes on to the canvas in charcoal. As I paint, I'll move things around a bit to improve the composition, but I want to make sure I have the mountains drawn correctly to begin with. I'm not normally this anal with my initial drawing, but when I work large I like to make sure things are correct right from the start - a stupid mistake in the beginning can result in trashing an expensive canvas, not to mention wasting days of precious painting time.


Once I've finished the drawing, I start in on the underpainting. When I paint larger paintings in the studio, I do a full underpainting in thinned paint prior to finishing the piece with thick oil paint. The initial underpainting allows me to put down the major shapes and colors quickly so that I can judge how the composition and color is working as I go along. It also serves to cover the white canvas - even when I paint plein air, I do a quick block in of the major shapes in thin paint, just to cover the canvas.

I normally do my underpainting in oil paint thinned with mineral spirits, but I'm using acrylics for this one because I'm in a hurry to get in done and I want the underpainting to dry by tomorrow. I also used acrylics to do my underpaintings when I was pregnant and didn't have solvents in the studio, but that's another story. Anyhow, I use super cheap acrylics, and an even cheaper palette. They get covered up in the end, so I'm not too concerned about the quality of the pigments. Here I'm using white, cad yellow hue, cad orange hue, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, alizarin, and some sort of obnoxious green. These paints are really bright - I do a lot of mixing of compliments to grey things down.


I start by painting in the sky. I don't know why, but I ALWAYS paint the sky first in every painting I do. Honestly, if someone made me start by painting some other part of the painting, I'm sure I would have a nervous breakdown on the spot. I'm a little bit obsessive about using the sky to judge everything else in the painting (color temperatures, etc.).


Once the sky is in, I start to block in the shadow shapes on the mountains.


I try to keep things simple, and I don't bother with variations in color temperature at this point. I only mix up a new color/value when I move to a different plane in the picture (in the case below, the mountains that are closer to the viewer).


The shadows really define the form of the mountains. Once they're done, I go in with a mid-tone to fill in the lighter shapes in the part of the mountain that is in the shade.


Next up is filling in the lighter shapes on the main part of the mountain that is in the sunlight.


Last, I fill in the lighter shapes on the sunlit hillside to the right, keeping things fairly loose and making sure the paint is thin and leaves no texture. At this point, the basic form of the mountain is blocked in, and I can see where I'm going to need to adjust my color temperature and value. For instance, the shadowed part of the mountain is a bit dark, the sunlit planes aren't bright enough, and the right hand side of the mountain needs work to define the rock forms.


And that's where I stopped for today. This is only about an hour's worth of painting, but I had finished another painting prior to starting in on this one, and I was getting tired. I've learned that once I start to get tired, it's time to put the paint brush down and take a rest. When I'm tired, I make bad decisions, and bad decisions just result in rework.

Nate's mom is watching Aspen tomorrow, so I'm planning to finish this underpainting and start in on the fun part - thick, buttery oil paint!

Tag, You're It!!

I've been tagged by fellow artist M.E. "Mike" Bailey, along with four other artists that he tagged in this post. The deal is that I have to post five random facts about myself, and then tag five other bloggers. Here are the official rules:

If you have been tagged, please follow these rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as wellas links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Anyhow, five things about me:

1. I never clean my paint brushes. I know it's terrible, but I leave them in a can of mineral spirits in between painting sessions. And yes, I use CHEAP bristle brushes!

2. I sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" about 50 times a day. Actually, now that it's officially the Christmas season, I've added "Silent Night" to my repertoire just to mix things up a bit. Poor Aspen - she's got to listen to my terrible voice all day...

3. I discovered a mouse in my garage tonight - when I chased it it went into my swim bag, which means that I'm not going to be using my goggles anytime soon.

4. I make a mean chocolate chip cookie.

5. I used to compete in Scottish Highland Dancing. I wore a kilt and danced to bagpipes and all - it was actually REALLY good exercise.

Here are the five people I'm going to tag:

Lisa Call could teach any artist a few things about discipline and productivity, and what's more important, she's an amazing artist. I have to admit I wasn't very familiar with textile work before I found her blog, but I love her work!

Peter Yesis is a daily painter who always inspires me with his consistency and fantastic still life paintings. I love to read about the motivation and ideas behind his art - I'm tagging him because I figure maybe he'll share a bit more about himself as well!

Rene PleinAir is an artist from the Netherlands whose moody paintings always make me want to visit his country. Like Peter, he manages to finish a paintings almost every day - so impressive!

KT was one of my sorority sisters in college, and she doesn't blog enough anymore, so this will be motivation. Plus, I know she'll have five interesting things to say!

Ramblin' Girl has tagged me before, so I'm going to tag her back. This is a new game, so that's allowed right? It's not like, "Tag, you're it, no touch-backs!", is it? She's been posting some cool photos lately.

Couldn't Have Said it Better

"Primary Colors"
Oil on Panel
8x10"
2007





I was reading the new issue of Southwest Art last night and came across a couple of interesting statements by artist Woody Gwyn. They sum up a lot of my feelings about being a representational painter, and put things into words that I sometimes have difficulty explaining.

On subject matter:

I hope I transcend the subject. If your work is a literal transcription and is not done with a certain level of passion, it's just illustration. And the danger in abstract art is, if it's not done with a certain philosophical underpinning and passion, then it's just decoration. - Woody Gwyn

On choosing a life in art:

No one made me do this. I love being an artist and wouldn't do anything else. But it's strenuous. We artists don't just shake things out of our sleeves. It demands mental concentration, and at the end of a hard day painting, you are drained. The positive thing about being an artist is that every once in a while you make a breakthrough, and you really see the possibilty of new horizons in your work. Anything worthwhile is usually hard work, and you have got to want, want, want it.- Woody Gwyn

Now I'm off to the mountains for a few days. Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Quote of the Week

"The Last to Change"
Oil on Panel
8x10"
2007




I'm a sucker for good quotes. I tear them out of magazines and write them down on scraps of paper, and fill my notes with them when I hear people speak. Some of them are too good to lose, so I'm going to start posting them here every once in a while.

I keep this one in my studio to remind me how blessed I am to be able to paint:

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” -Maya Angelou

The Show

My first opening was Friday night, and it turned out to be a great experience! A lot friends and family came out to support me, which made the whole experience less intimidating than I thought it would be. A bunch of my (ex)coworkers from my engineering job came as well, which shows what great, supportive people they are. There was a decent turnout of collectors, and we sold some paintings, which is always nice! Quite a few people showed up who already own paintings of mine, and it was great to meet them and talk to them about my work.


I think that just about everyone I talked to asked me the same three questions (or a variation of each):

1) Do you paint on location?
2) How long does it take you?
3) Do you use your engineering degree?


The show hangs through the end of this month, but my work is done for the time being. Now it's back into the studio to get some paintings done for other shows and opportunities!


Now that I'm not working towards a show, I'd like to try some new things in the next few months. First, I really want to try out pastels. Second, I want to start doing some smaller work in an attempt to paint everyday - I like to paint wet-into-wet, so when I'm working on larger paintings I often don't paint unless I know I'm going to have a devoted chunk of time. I think doing smaller 6x8" studies would give me a way to pick up the brushes even when I have less time.

Nervous

Ugh - why didn't anyone tell me I was going to be so nervous the day of my first show opening!?!?

Luckily, Nate was really sweet and booked me a massage at a nice spa, and arranged to have my mom watch Aspen so that I can go relax. Hopefully it will work, because I'm a nervous wreck right now! I just want the opening to go well, be fun, and hopefully sell some paintings while we're at it.

If you're in town, stop by!!

Framed

Welcome to my messy studio! I've spent the past few days framing paintings for my solo show at Angler Art, and I think I've officially run out of room in my house to place the finished paintings.


A while back (like, a really LONG while), Shan asked me to talk about some of my wholesale framing sources, and I figure now is as good a time as any to discuss framing, since I'm up to my ears in it! Just a warning though - I have a LOT to say on this subject, so this might be a long rambling post...

As you can see from these photos, I typically frame my work in pretty classic gold leaf frames, or black frames with a gold liner. Every once in a while I'll use a "silver" leafed frame on a painting that seems too cool for gold. All of the frames I use have finished corners - in other words, there is no seam showing in the corner of the frame as it has been filled in and leafed over. This is a pretty standard gallery requirement in this part of the country.

For this show, the majority of my frames came from JFM Enterprises and Omega Moulding. I buy wholesale from both of these suppliers, using my Colorado state tax ID number.

JFM carries a lot of fairly classic frames, and the prices are hard to beat. Since I live halfway across the country, I usually expect shipping to cost about half the price of the frames, and they still end up more affordable than most places that carry finished-corner frames. The frame I use from them is a gold frame that curves inward, with ribbing on the inside edge (seen on the three lower paintings in the top picture above). Though most landscape painters out West like to use "Plein Air" frames with a flat profile and ornamental edges, I find that the flat profile does nothing for my work. This frame looks fantastic on almost all of my paintings, and it always looks expensive hanging in a gallery. I used a couple of these when I showed my work at the Forbes Galleries in New York, and I had a number of collectors tell me that my frames looked better than most in the show. The only problem with JFM is that they are often out of stock when I call to order this particular frame, and sometimes the frames can be on backorder for quite a while. Otherwise, they've been good to deal with, and have often replaced frames that were damaged during shipping with no questions asked.

Omega is a big company that supplies moulding to (I would guess) most frame shops in the U.S. Although their big thing is moulding, they also have a small line of what they call "Gallery Frames" - these are their finished corner gold and silver leafed frames. There are quite a few people who supply these frames retail, but I prefer to buy from Omega since I can, and since it's easier to buy in bulk directly from them. I like their line of dark frames the most - unlike most black frames I've used, these have a finish that's virtually indestructable, which means a lot when you've been as frustrated as I've been at nicked frames. You can see one of their dark frames on the sunset painting in the picture below.


Another place I buy a lot of frames from is Manny's of Denver. Manny runs a frame warehouse here in Denver, and I like that I can stop by in person and pick up finished frames anytime that I'm in a crunch for time. I used to frame almost all of my paintings with one of Manny's "silver" plein air frames (for the record, I put silver in quotes because Manny's silver finish isn't really silver, it's more of a cool gold). I've stopped using these as much because my gallery in town doesn't like them (even though my paintings in them sold with no problem). You can see the silver frame on the second to left painting in the picture below. I also like Manny's dark frames - the sunset painting in the very top photo in the post is in a Manny's frame. I used to buy a lot of these, but I've had some problems with the black part chipping easily. Since the black finish is actually black over red, with the black rubbed down to show some of the red, it's next to impossible to fix one of these frames once it's chipped. For that reason, I've been trying to steer away from these - it's frustrating to have to replace a frame that you paid $100 for.


What I wish is that I could afford to use custom frames all of the time, but at this point in my career, I just can't afford the expense. As my prices increase, I'm hoping to use more custom made frames. My favorite custom framer, who I used for some of my paintings in the Forbes show, is Mountain Goat Frames. Mountain Goat is run by a local artist and her husband, and their frames are beautiful. I had them make me some dark frames with a gold liner for the show, and they were not only beautiful, but extremely high quality. Their dark finish is extremely durable, and stands up to a lot of beating without the chipping problems I've experienced from Manny's. And because the frames are custom, you can have them do the gold leaf finish in any tone you want. I'd recommend Mountain Goat Frames to anyone looking for a really high quality finish, and a frame that will make your painting look like it's worth every penny.


Last, but not least, I order all of my framing hardware in bulk online. I honestly don't know the name of the place I ordered from last, because the stuff lasts me so long. I always keep multiple sizes of offset clips and screws on hand in the studio so that I'm prepared when I need to get paintings out the door. Nate recently bought me an electric screwdriver, which might not sound like the most romantic gift, but quickly became my favorite gift ever after framing twenty paintings in two days!!

Anyone want to mention a framer you can't live without? I'd love to hear who people use and what their experiences have been.