November 15, 2016

Maine Still Life

After spending the recent workshop in Montana talking about value and painting preliminary value sketches I was thinking that some still life paintings I'd done over the summer lacked the range of values needed to make the paintings work.

I took another look at this one, and repainted it with a dark blue under painting to get the values right.  After I added color, I went back into all the "white" highlights and evaluated them for color.

All of which inspired me to make my Maine plans for next summer!

November 1, 2016

Painting in Montana

 I spent the past weekend at a painting workshop in Montana.  The still lifes were painted from a set up in the studio; the landscapes are based on reference photos taken this week along the Gallatin River and a couple of months ago in Yellowstone and Paradise Valley.

All these paintings were started with a value sketch and then quickly painted with color after that.   After an accidental splash of turpenoid over the paintings, they got a bit of repainting on top of that.

I'd had a bit of "painter's block" for a while now, and it was nice to just push through it and paint!

The painting of the still life with the "wallpaper" pattern behind it was done first with a burnt umber band at the top of the painting.  It was too big, too dull and made a lousy composition.  After thinking about ways to solve the problem, I considered what a painter like Eduard Vuillard would do -- and added the pattern (based on a scarf) to bring the painting together.