LJ and NJ

I don’t think i indicated the name of my new painting of the cabin in the woods. It’s called “Owl” cabin — each cabin at piano camp has a bird name. Since last posting I’ve worked a bit both on this painting and on the other i mentioned last time. For this one, I’m redoing the trees on the right side of the painting because what i had done wasn’t working the way i wished. Originally i thought i could just do masses of different greens, without much shape, as the reference photo looks on the right side of the photo. But that won’t work in the way I’ve got my composition set up. So I’m going back, will put in some branches, and then see where foliage should go. also gave some attention to the bench. I’m working up to get to have the shadows on the bench “work”. The trim around the windows helps the curtains look more like curtains — or at least i like to think so!. Most of the attention has been to the rocks. There is only one that has form; the others are still mostly just shapes — but fun ones, nevertheless.

I’ve begun work on two new paintings.

(1) I decided I’d like to do one or two paintings as a surprise farewell gift to my piano teacher, who is moving to New York in June. I wanted the paintings to convey something about her life in Colorado. Norma suggested that rather than doing some generic Colorado landscape that i do something connected to piano camp. She (teacher) has taught at the piano camp for the past several years. the faculty there stay in cabins (as do us students) and sometimes have a piano in the cabin, so they teach there, as well. Norma and i went up to the piano camp and she took some photos. There are three i might try to paint. The first, which I’ve begun, is of a cabin teacher stayed in. So here is the reference photo, along with my beginning work on the painting.

(2). A couple of months ago i began a drawing From a photo i took of a scene from a walk i took near home of some friends. I was very taken with this bridge and the challenge of trying to get the angles of the bridge and fences. At first i had no intention of attempting to paint this scene, but then decided to give it a try. Very early days yet.

I’m thinking this one is about done. This past week i worked on the flowers and other plants on the right side of the painting; also repainted some of the shadows and reflections of /on the rocks on the right side. Feeling ready to start something new.

I’ve been working past week or two on the grasses on the left side of the painting and on the reflections of the mountain and trees in the water. Also gave some attention to glazing over the small rocks in the stream that are supposed to be underwater. Probably did 5 or 6 layers of very thin glazes, using darker hues in some areas and lighter in others. Issues with the grasses involved improving color and brush strokes, in relation to perspective. this required multiple re-do’s, but I think i am getting closer to what I’d like this part of hte painting to look like. as for the reflections, i repainted those several times — turning the painting sideways, and upside down, trying to get both the shapes and the hues to “work”. 

As i think I indicated in a recent posting, I have been working almost all at home on this current painting.  This is partly because we didnt’ have class for a couple of weeks.  However, as i was getting ready to do some glazing over my pebbles, i wanted to get input from teacher.  Told her my plan; she said go ahead with it; i did, and it was a mess. Turned out that the medium i use for the painting itself — walnut oil — which i like a lot — cannot be used for glazing. It doesn’t stick with the paint; drips all over the canvas: it’s a mess!  I needed to use Liquin, which i do not like for painting — but which works like a charm for creating a glaze.  So a couple of days later, after i’d Gotten some Liquin, i tried it.  So far only one layer, but i think it’ll be ok.  Lesson learned.

Meanwhile i needed to repaint the reflection of the mountain in the water.  Made a try at that.  I think it’s better but still doesn’t “read” quite right.  Now doing another round of painting the trees so that : (a) they look less stick-like; and (b) so that i can emphasize how the light hits differently on the left and right sides of the canvas.

I didn’t get around to working on the  grassses (left side of painting), to make them more realistic, but not too much so.

The large rock on the right hand side of the painting has had almost no work — Just one layer, with a little shading.  I plan to go back to that this week.

I’ve been working kind of all over the place past week on this painting.  I gave the sky another layer.  Also touched up the mountains.  I did another layer for the reflection of the mountain in the water, but now need to make it look like a reflection. The field of grass is still a work in progress, so i’ll Try to make more progress on it this week.  The shoreline got some attention, with attempts at making stuff look more three-dimensional.  All that said, my real fun came in getting ready to do the underwater substrate, pebbles and small rocks.  And there are a LOT of very small rocks!  I’ve not painted nearly enough.  But with what’s there, you can perhaps imagine how it will look when i paint the “water” above.  This will be via a glaze , or two, or three — we’ll see!

A couple of weeks ago i began a new painting.  Since we haven’t had class time to work on our paintings i’ve Gone ahead at home.  This teacher wants us to begin by using a grid, which i’ve Not done before, but i can see the value.  You can probably make out grid lines, as mostly all i’ve Done so far is block in shapes, so paint layers are pretty thin. The reference photo is from a photo workshop Norma did last year (the horseback one) in the Wind River Range in Wyoming.  What you can see in my beginnings is an effort to get some of the hues blocked in.  Ignore the lower right half of the painting: an experiment gone awry.  I wanted to paint a dark substrate and then paint all the flowers and plants on top of that. Still plan to do that, but so far have three layers of that to-be-background, and it’s not yet right.

Last week in class we were each assigned a “live” pear to paint.  The lesson was on figuring out light and shadow, (along with color, of course).  We had about an hour for this little project.  I will play around with the result, but here is the original. (Note that the background is pretty flat — that is because we didn’t have table edges; i might paint those in later.)

 

i spent a bit of time on the last class assignment — the one where we were learning about using a palette knife. I scraped off some of the “corn” and tried to replace it with a bit more background. Then, days later, (after it had dried, sort of) i added more “stalks”.  I am probably better off thinking of them as kind of a hybrid corn, at least for now.  Also added a layer to the grass at the bottom of the painting; tried a mid-blue glaze on the gray barn roof (but it didn’t “take” too well — will have to repeat: this is common – glazes almost always multi-layered.  ) The thing about the roof being blue, however, is that i want to be careful that it’s not close to sky colors.

I haven’t posted for a while because the teacher we have currently does quite a bit of didactic work in class.  We actually work on projects designed to teach specific things.  A couple of weeks ago we had a lesson on light and shadow.  Last week we all tried to copy a barn and field of corn from a photo teacher took in Iowa some time ago. The challenge was that we were not allowed to use a brush — we were to practice learning how to paint with a palette knife.  We were also supposed to finish the painting in class, which i was unable to do (as were my classmates.). So i have worked on it a  bit at home this week.  Because you use very thick paint and no medium it takes forever to dry.  therefore fixing mistakes is somewhere between tricky and impossible.  So — i attach  the reference photo and my attempt.  It was challenging but fun.

(P.S. this week we’re all going to paint a pear>)

following suggestions of my faithful readers: i added more birds on top of rocks; also applied 2 layers of a dark glaze to the rocks. while i was at it i repainted part of the sky. this project has almost, but not quite, reached point of diminishing returns for me. so it’s going to sit while i am gone the next 9 days and then we will see.