This is the painting i am working on at home, without any teacher input.  Consequently, there are quite a few things i am figuring out as i go.  So this week i did some more work on the sky, began working on reflections in the water, and today started to figure out how to do the silhouetted trees and surround.  As you can see from the reference photo, it’s quite a challenge to put this part together, as all the detail is washed out.  So i am kind of making up part of it.  This is just the first go-round, so i will keep working to get it to “work”.  The part of the sky which in the reference photo appears as white, as do some of the reflections, is really all “blown out”  so i had to make up something that would come across as a bit more realistic.

I’ve just begun a new painting, at home.  So this one might need some expert input, but at least for now i am on my own.  i don’t want to take up valuable class time with a new one, when i’ve Got so much still to do on the  “in-class” project.

So, this reference photo is from a calendar,; Norma cropped some of the photo to improve the composition.  as i said above, this is in the pre-preliminary phases.  I plan to block in the water and the sky before adding the silhouetted trees.  Should be an interesting challenge.

Still a long way to go with this painting-from-a-painting, but i am continuing to learn more with each session.  It’s been so long since i started this one i will go ahead and repost the “original”, and then my progress to date (or maybe the other way around,

depending on what this program decides to do).  So last week and today in class (which, you may recall, where i’m Restricted to working on this project), i worked on the bank in front of the trees and the partial snow-and-weed field behind the bank.  More instruction on new brushstroke, so slow going continues.  However, i think teacher may let me speed up some, as he wants me to have this done by May 19th, which is some deadline for submission to a local art show.  We’ll see.

 

I did some practicing at home this week on what teacher (Jim) said needed to be my last step with the sky — producing a mottled effect throughout.  So that’s what i did first half of class today.  Then, finally (I think it’s been a month of classes on those clouds!) i mixed up color for beginning to block in trees in the background.  Hard for viewer to tell how this is all going to turn into trees — at this point, take my word for it.  Meanwhile, along the way, i tried to learn another brush technique.  This one is with a fan brush and requires a touch somewhere between a push and a flick.  Practice !

Well, i know i haven’t posted anything in several weeks, but there are reasons for this hiatus.  In early January, Ed, my regular oil painting teacher, left for two or three months to take care of dying mother in England.  In his absence our new teacher, Jim, who is now the manager of the gallery and is a nationally recognized artist himself, has taken over all of Ed’s classes  – and that has meant a HUGE change in class.  first of all, he does not want us taking our paintings home; they are to be class project only.  That of course means i can only work on my painting once a week in class.  The biggest change, however, has been that Jim takes a much more didactic approach.  And he is much more specific in his expectations about the task at hand.  For example, it’s taken me three weeks just to do the clouds (and i am not sure they are really “done”).  The process has involved me trying to learn 4 very specific brush strokes which were new skills for me.  You have to worry not only about thickness of paint; whether or not surface of canvas is wet or dry; whether or not to use oil; and how to hold the brush. Prior to getting to the clouds i spent several weeks trying to get the snow fields to “work”.

 

If this sounds like i am complaining, not true. It is true that it’s been a bit frustrating — however, i am learning so much that i would like to continue with Jim when Ed returns.  That may be sticky — we will see.

So, to the project behind all these challenges:  I am working from a photo of a painting entitled “Orchestral Arrangements” which i found in one of my art magazines.  It’s by an artist named Kim Lordier, who works mostly in pastel.  I fell in love with the subject of the painting, and with the light and color .  So i attach below a photo of my reference photo and also my beginning progress on this project.  I am aware that snow will need to be darkened ; and that the water in the lake will need to be adjusted — among other things.  So — still very preliminary.

Well this project has been much more difficult than i expected.  Trying to purposely paint not what i see but an impressionistic impression (of the bottom half of the painting) has taken much thinking and rethinking and repainting.  I keep slipping back into “realism”, or at least my facsmile of it.  This week in class teacher helped me understand better how to go about it.  Unfortunately, though i made good progress in class once i got the hang of a new brush stroke, i proceeded to undo most of my progress the next day.  So — the photo I’m posting is post- and pre-progress!

The brush stroke Ed suggested was in relation to the rocks .  He said forget about them being “rocks” and just let the paint brush go, but “pressing, moving and lifting”.

On the more “realistic” (upper) parts of the painting, i continue to try to get the values better.

Not too much so far  to say about my efforts this week.  I’ve been experimenting with colors and values to try for acheieving certain effects.    Still very much a work in progress!

When i could grab a few minutes during the last 10 days or so, i went to my studio and experimented with several different approaches to this new painting.  Last week in class, teacher suggested i think about the painting as: the mountains would be in focus, whereas the lower part of the painting would be analagous to me being in a car whirring past fast, so the features of the landscape would be blurred.  I took this to mean i should paint, say, the rocks, as rocks, and then blur them with various techniques .  I thought this would be really easy, as it seemed it would be like stuff I’ve done in the past with reflections in water.  Not so fast.  No matter what i tried, it fell woefully short.  If i can, I’ll atttach to this post a couple of my experiments.  So today i went into class and turned out i had misunderstood teacher (who told me, in any case, to stop worrying about what he wanted, and go for what i’d Like to see on the canvas.  In any event, what he had intended for me to do was to just paint something blurry in the first place with vague shapes that had some vague relationship to reality.  Once i got that message it got easier.  The attempt  i am posting here will show kind of what i am after with the brown grasses/rocks.  The rocks that sit separately are just painted in to put them in place.  They are just a first try.  then went back to working on sky .  (Note: photos below are in chronological order, with the bottom right one being today’s effort.  Hope reader can tell the differences!)  also, sky may very well look better from last week.  That’s because i am in midst of repainting it and it’s full of half-done brush strokes.  Stay tuned.

Haven’t been able to even think much about painting the past few weeks — we were away for a week and then had company for a week.  Now getting back into the swing of things.  Before my break, i had selected a new subject and had decided that i want to paint this subject twice: once with the same kind of impressionistic/abstract form in which i did the Icelandic Houses; and once returning to realism.  I did a free form charcoal and terps drawing of the scene.  Yesterday and today i worked on beginning the first painting of the two i plan to do. I attach here the photo from which i’m working; the drawing; and my beginning phase with the painting.

Just a few finishing touches to my Icelandic Houses.  Thought iwould go ahead and post, as i have begun thinking about what i am going to begin later this week as new project.  For the most part i am pleased with what i’ve Learned this time around, and also with the almost-finished product.  this past week i made the smaller boat about 1/3 smaller than it was, and changed the orientation a bit of the larger (bottom) boat. Also tried a couple of new tricks with one of the houses.  VERY subtle (!) i doubt viewers can tell the difference.