This post refers to my “sunset”(Norway) painting.  So this week at home i continued working on the sky.  Completed the yellow outline of the sun around the clouds in the lower middle part of the sky and also worked in some lighter areas in the dark clouds in the upper right and left of the painting.

Today in class i worked on the grasses in the lower right quadrant .  I wanted the grasses to have the feel of grasses but not be overwhelming.  So what i tried, on advice of teacher, was to use the side of a small “flat” brush with very little paint and then paint with a sideways, horizontal stroke.  I tried that in several places with some success.  After the paint dries in the front grasses I’ll try during this week to add some really tall, thin grasses with maybe a few seed pods to round out the effect.  We’ll see how that goes!

Also today repainted one of the mountains (right side) and changed the angle of the bottom of that hillside and also one hillside on the left side of the painting.  — purpose to improve the “flow” overall.

I repainted both windmills this week in class.  Good exercise in fine movement control – or lack thereof.  Had to hold the painting in my lap to get an angle where my hand was steady enough to attempt those inner things (what are they called?) spokes?  Used a size 0 (as in zero) round brush, and still had some trouble getting the lines fine enough.

Started painting in pumpkin leaves in lower left-hand corner of the painting.  Had to experiment a bit to get a color that was green but that still offered contrast to all the green around.

Teacher says this painting close to being finished.  I don’t agree but i can always work on it at home after she declares that I should begin a new one

I haven’t posted about my “sunset” painting for a little while, so I’ll try to play catch-up.  For the past couple of weeks I’ve worked on the water in the stream; the landscape; and, for the past week, the sky.  Last week in class i asked teacher for ideas on how to correct some of my errors in the sky, especially in respect to the direction in which I’d (mis)painted some of the clouds.  He suggested something i found really shocking but went ahead and tried it anyway.  (I didn’t post last week because the initial step of this process — painting over large portions of the sky with a titanium white mixed with a very small amount of blue — made the painting full of big white blobs.  Next step,, which i worked on during the week, was to begin to apply several coats of a thin gray glaze, all the while shaping the several areas to improve the overall flow of the clouds.). Today in class i added darker gray and adjusted my brush stroke to better help those clouds look like clouds.  It’s also too soon to add some orange and red back into the upper parts of the sky — with oils you just have to be patient.

As to the 4 white stripes you can see — they are a beginning step in making the yellow areas of the sky really shine.  So — my instructions are to outline each of the areas around the purple closed S (where the yellow will be) with white.  Wait for that to dry; then paint yellow on top of the white.  I couldn’t start on the outline of the purple clouds yet because that canvas area still wet; and colors would just run together

For the past two weeks I’ve spent my class time working on pumpkins (and more pumpkins); pumpkin shadows (there are a lot of them, as well!); and fixing the sky, which i’d inadvertently messed up a little.  When i redid the sky i then had to also redo the tracings of the windmills.  Then i tried painting the windmills , but the canvas was wet, so, as you can see, the paints ran together.  I have to wait for all of it to dry before i can take on the windmills a second time. I thought i was going to be ready to paint some large plant leaves (pumpkin leaves, no doubt) which will reside in the lower left hand corner of the painting. – but I’m not there yet.