LJ and NJ

in my “tracing” painting class last week i began a new project.  The reference photo for this one is of a set of waterfalls (“Copeland Falls) in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I took the photo in June.  We had a wet spring and the water was running very fast and i wanted to try to recapture some of the wildness and excitement of the water.  Yesterday was the first day of beginning this painting, as last week was devoted to making decisions about composition and doing the tracing and transferring to canvas. 

Last time i posted i included a reference photo for a new painting project.  This past week i have continued with adding layers to the underpainting and with beginning to add some details.  The reference photo for this project is from the trailhead to the Copeland Falls hike in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I took the photo when i was on a hike past the falls in June.  I’m using another photo from the same hike as a reference for my new project in my other painting class — and will post that one later today.

A couple of weeks ago i declared the red barn (from Monday class) finished.  I’ve already started on a new painting, and I’ll post photos and discussion next week.  Meanwhile, here is the red barn.  The colors turned out ok, after all the drama with the optical illusion.  Otherwise, it was good practice for trying to improve my fine motor skills with a small brush on a small canvas.

This week i began a new painting.  The reference photo for this one was taken at Rocky Mountain National Park )entrance to Wild Basin trails.  I really liked the play of the rushing water and the still water, and the colors of and under the water.

The canvas I’m using is 16″ x 20″.  I began with a a couple of thumbnail drawings to be clear as to what i wanted composition-wise.  Then i drew in charcoal (then sprayed) on the canvas.  Today i began blocking in the darks.  The goal here is not to worry about the colors or textures being “right”, but just to begin to get the feel of the values.

 

I’m finally getting tired of this one.  In class Thursday i added some foliage at the bottom of the painting.  Did some more of that today.  Also touched a few parts of the background at the top.  On to next project.

I want to describe something i found so surprising that it seemed worth it to tell everyone about it.  …  A couple weeks ago i used a very thin burnt sienna wash (layer of paint mixed with mineral spirits) on the lower half of the red barn painting.  I did this because teacher and i decided that it was becoming very distracting to try to paint the barn when there was so much white left on the canvas.  (No:  in my other class, what I’m used to is putting on a wash over the whole canvas at the very beginning of the work– just saying).  Anyhow, that was quite a while ago and that part of the canvas was bone dry when i started today. So — I wanted to begin work on the waving yellow grasses in that bottom half of the photo. I mixed up a combination of yellow ochre, raw umber and a little white to make a nice mix for the grasses.  I mixed three different intensities, varying the white.  Note that there is NO green in the mixture.  I then started to try to paint the grasses.  What happened is what you see below: the yellow/brown mixture, when it hit the burnt-sienna-covered canvas, appeared green.  I double=-checked my mix, and double- triple-cleaned my brushes.  No change.  What happened is what you see in the second photo below: Then what i did was, on advice of teacher, cover the whole rest of the canvas with that same mixture.  When I’d finished that, all of a sudden the grasses appeared yellow again. Pretty something, right?!

Meanwhile, I also did some more work on the barn, which is still a bit “off”.

Two weeks ago i worked more on the trees on the hillside, trying to place sky holes so they made sense, and working on overall shapes.  Last week i didn’t do anything, as i was out of town.

Today i had class and decided it was time to paint the big tree back into the painting.  That means I’m pretty much done with that hillside.  I’m posting photo of what i got done on that tree today.  During this coming week I’ll try to finish it up.  Then need to complete the background, which is still unfinished.  And then I’m going to start something new.

This week i worked on getting some shapes into the water reflections in the “black canvas” painting.  Last week i just wanted to get the feel of the reflections.  But the reflections have to actually reflect what’s above.  So that was the goal today.  Partly reached. 

today in class (it’s Monday, so it’s Tracing class) i started working on both the fence and the barn.  The fence had been traced in a couple of weeks ago, but then painted over because the lines were so narrow that it would work better to retrace and repaint, which is what i did today.  It needs more work to bring it out more, but it’s at least know-able as a fence.  Painting the barn was fun, but a little confusing:  you may remember that the barn is reversed directionally from the photograph.  That means that the sides of the barn that are in sunlight and shadow are reversed in the painting, relative to the photo.  Confused?  So, it’s a beginning, with plenty more to do.

I just looked at the photo i posted last night and realized how overexposed it is.  I am attaching a new photo here which is more true to the actual hues i painted.  Comments, criticism, etc., welcome, as always.