The Road Out II

The Road Out II, 8x10

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I painted this landscape from photos I took a year ago in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. My college buddy, Bruce Powers, hauled me up there to help him build a tool shed on the property he and his wife, Peggy, bought there a few years ago. This view is from the road that fronts their scenic property.

Dog Day Afternoon

 

Dog Day Afternoon, 24 x 20

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Finally ready to post this last scene of dogs on the road. Below are the other two in the series, which were the subjects of earlier posts.

Dog Walk, 24 x 20

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Gracy's Place, 20 x 24

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Dog Walk

Dog Walk, 24 x 20
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Above is the second in a series I'm painting from my trip to Colorado last September. I'm going to post this completed painting by itself for the moment, but will add a couple shots I took earlier in the process. It will help demonstrate a cool blocking-in idea Laurel came up with for our alla prima class. For lack of an established name, I refer to it as the "rub in, rub out" technique. Stay tuned. . . .

 

Okay, here is a snapshot of the completed block-in. It's all done using a dark neutral, a large brush, paper towels and linseed oil. The linseed oil is used to allow the paint to spread more easily, the large brush to get the canvas covered more quickly and to keep you from getting too detailed. The paper towel is used to rub off excess paint from areas on the canvas that have lighter values than what has been applied with the dark neutral.

So, to begin with, start placing the main, simplified shapes on the canvas in their correct location on the canvas. One cool thing about this process is it's very low pressure. If you don't like where you applied your dark neutral, or you applied too much, just rub out the necessary areas with paper towel, and rub in with your brush the areas that need to be darker. Any dark neutral that remains on the canvas will just add punch to the shadow areas. 

To make it easier for the dark neutral to spread easily, dip a paper towel in linseed oil and scrub a thin amount of the dark neutral into the canvas. Do be careful not to make the underpainting runny or to use so much oil that the canvas gets shiny reflections. If this happens, use paper towels to pick up the excess.

Continue applying and removing the dark neutral until you have a good value map that is accurate in the placement and also in creating an accurate range of values on the canvas before adding color.

 

Now you're ready to start putting in color. Paint in the main color masses, blended in on top of the dark neutral underpainting, and continue until, finally, you've added in the all the highlights and everything looks the way you dreamed it would.

The Saga Continues

Cedars Study, 6 x 8

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Wednesday was the beginning of Laurel Daniel's latest plein air class. This first day, we worked in the classroom from photos, because of the weather. Laurel walked us through an extremely helpful, group step-by-step demo of blocking in the main values in a landscape (see Cedars Study, above), after explaining the theory of planes and atmospheric perspective. Boy, I thought I knew it, which I did in my head, but the demo showed me I've been ignoring certain elements of the process when actually painting. That is, primarily, that those relationships must hold true within each general distance range of the painting, (foreground, middle ground, and background), and in addition that each of those succeeding distance planes must correctly relate to one another. It's hard to put it all into words, which I guess explains why actually doing this exercise was so helpful and so important.

Mountain Pasture, 6 x 8

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This second study was also from the first class, where we were to go through the above-mentioned process on our own, using a photo of our own. Mountain Pasture is from another photo taken while in Colorado.

The Road Out

The Road Out, 8 x 10
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Here is another piece from Colorado. It is a plein air study, which I didn't have time to clean up until today. I wanted to paint outside this afternoon, which was beautifully sunny and cool here in Austin. Unfortunately, I didn't have any new panels, so I finished this in order to get at least some practice for the start of Laurel's next plein air class, which starts Wednesday. Note to self: get panels tomorrow!

Dog Heaven 2

Dog Heaven 2, 8 x 8

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This is my Irish Terrier, Major Eamon. I recently brought him on the trip I took to Colorado with my college buddy, Bruce Powers and his dog, Gracy. We were there almost a week, nearly all of which the dogs were free of both leashes and fences. With the freedom to chase chipmunks, the scenery, and getting to split nearly half a t-bone steak with Gracy the night before we returned, life was about as good as it gets for a canine.

This is a one-hour study I did today for my daughter Natalie, who asked me to paint her favorite pooch when she saw the photo I later referenced it from.

Gracy's Place

Gracy's Place, 20 x 24
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I painted this today from one of many photos I took while in southwestern Colorado a few weeks ago. I haven't painted this large in awhile, so I was happy to be able to complete it in one session, albeit one that lasted several hours. As you might guess, that's Gracy in the foreground. My dog, Major, is in on up the road, waiting on his friend.