Fresh Eyes

I'm working all the angles this week! I just finished a commission for a nest painting. I'm working on a landscape and I'm playing with layers on 5 small abstracts. If you paint, do you like to work on different things at the same time. It may seem unfocused to do that but for me it makes perfect sense. While layers are drying on the abstracts I can be working on the other two paintings. If I feel stuck with something on the landscape I can always switch to the nest and work on it for a while. When I go back to the other piece I feel like I have "fresh eyes" and can resolve whatever the problem was. 

This nest is 20x30 and heading to a customer in Virginia.

An abstracty landscape in progress. I'm not sure how much more I'll be doing to this one.

5 little abstracts in progress. I'm REALLY not sure how much more I'll be doing to these. They're still speaking to me. Do you listen to your paintings?

A new landscape painting step by step

Hi folks. I hope February is treating you well. I thought I'd share the step by step process from painting my newest landscape. This one is a diptych done on 2- 20x20 canvases so the final size is 40x20. I love texture so before I started painting I prepped the canvas with crumpled tissue paper (you can see a close up below). I just use the white stuff that you use in gift bags, wad it up into a ball, open it up and apply it to the canvas with either a matt acrylic medium or matt Mod Podge. If you try this, be sure to use the matt version, not the gloss. You get better adhesion with the acrylic paint this way. Paint a layer of the adhesive on the canvas. Apply the tissue and then do another layer of adhesive on top. After the tissue is dry I painted both canvases with red acrylic.

As you can see I stacked the canvases on my easel. Of course this is the best way to get continuity when doing multiple panels. I sketched the design first with a white pastel pencil and then started blocking in color.

Once I knew where the basic elements were I started loosely putting in the greens. I use a large brush and keep the strokes mostly open and separate. I don't want to cover up too much of the red because there's still lots of layering to do and I like to leave a bit of red peeking through over the whole painting for interest and consistency.

Here, I'm working my way down the canvases with yellows and greens, still keeping things loose.

I added some purple on the ground area under the trees. Once all of the canvas is covered I go back and begin putting in more color, building layers. The colors I used were permanent sap green, permanent green light, cad yellow deep, arylamide yellow light, orange, purple, cobalt blue and white.

This gives you a better idea of what the texture is like. You can also tell that I don't cover all the red.

I added some purples to the tree trunks and then started adding leaves to the foreground to cover bits of the trunks.

Last layers were adding light to the foreground and brightening up the sky. So, there ya have it. I called this one Dappled. Have you tried adding texture to your canvases? If you do, I'd love to know what you use and how you do it so please share in the comments!

Yes, I still do colored pencil

I know I've posted a lot of stuff about acrylic painting but I do still paint with colored pencil on occasion. I do portraits in colored pencil using the tonal layering technique that gives such a smooth finish to children's skin. This is one I did some years ago but it's new to the portrait page here. I just added it recently. This is my niece Kayla (she's now 22 yrs old!) and it was one of my favorites to do along with the one of her playing with bubbles - click the portrait tab above and scroll down to see that one.

I also added the portrait of Kayla's brother Grant....

The background on this one is a lot looser. I like the scribbly pencil stroke look sometimes plus it's faster to do and is a nice contrast to the smooth layers on the figure.

Then there is the super fast way to work with colored pencil and that's what I'm doing now on an abstract piece. I use mineral spirits with the pencils to turn the dry pigment into paint. I LOVE working this way. Yesterday I turned the camera on to show you a few minutes of how I paint with a pencil.