two new step by steps

It's time for a personal challenge. I'm going to post two paintings that I am starting and post the progress steps on them here. The first one is a landscape from a local botanical gardens. This one will be done like the last two landscapes in oils on canvas. The still life of cherries in a silver pitcher is on masonite with an extremely smooth finish. I haven't tried oils on masonite yet, and it is very different so far! Its like trying to paint with mayonnaise on a chalk board. It will be hard to blend wet on wet on this surface, so I will have to lay the paint on side by side and do soft brush blending, working with out medium and keeping things on the dry side. I'll have to let it sit between sessions and dry out, too. The smooth surface makes the paint 'lift' if you repeatedly stroke the brush, so it will be interesting to see how I like this support for the oil medium. Piece of cake with acrylics, but totally different with oils. The idea is to have very little surface texture to deal with.

Ala Prima Study

Here is a small ala prima sketch. Ala Prima means to paint the entire painting in one sitting, with no underpainting to speak of, and no sketching. The idea is to figure out the value (the relative light or dark or graytones), the hue (the color) and its temperature on the palette, then lay the stroke down on the canvas in one expressive stroke...no do-overs. It's harder than it looks!! You have to take into consideration what the stroke will look like sitting next to or on top of the paint already on the canvas. Things looks dramatically different on the pallet than they do on the canvas. Color reacts to its surroundings tremendously. I tried to push the color as well, because it was a white and aqua tea cup with an aqua interior on a beige cloth, and I love color. 6 x 4 oil, two hours, no mediums used.
What I learned: This method is saucy and is great fun to do. Learning to accurately see values is crucial. It uses a ton of paint. I won't be able to afford to do many paintings in this style, even though it suits my temperment because you can't be miserly with the paint.

Greenbluff cabbages

From a plein air sketch last fall. 8 x 10 oil

Spokane River Summer Morning

Finally finished the plein air field sketch I started last fall. Its good to be back in the saddle again! oil on canvas 8x10. Available for purchase

Plein Air Field Sketch

Today I met some artist friends at the local farm area called GreenBluff. Its right up the hill from where I live. This is a rough two hour sketch of the fall fields of cabbage and corn. I am taking tons of photos, trying to squirrel away reference photos for winter time work when we are snowed under with five feet of snow. The locals are all saying it could snow anytime now. sheesh...I'm not ready!!!

student works at Terry Lee's Studio

Here are a couple of snapshots of the interior of Terry Lee's studio in Coeur D'Alene Idaho where I am painting and drawing from live models. He teaches sculpting and does bronze work for galleries in addition to his huge animal paintings. Check out his website www.TerryLeeArt.com

Plein Air Study

I am meeting with a group of plein air painters once a week and this is a field sketch from a beautiful park in Idaho called Corbin Park on the Spokane River.