Week 16 - Monana painting is officially finished!

The Montana painting has spent the last few weeks turned to the wall...I wanted to forget about it a bit and then look at it again with 'fresh' eyes to make sure that it really was finished and I am 100% happy with every party of it!

I am happy to say that it passed the test! Finished!



After my self-congratulating was over :) it was time to get down to some more work, so I did a few more small studies for my next commission. Everything is still in the planning stages, but it is quite nice to play.



Painted using watercolours




Painted using gouache

Week 11 - Montana painting 99% done

This week I made the final touches to the snow banks at the waters edge...and then using a wet-in-wet technique painted the water and reflections. I think this painting it is 99% complete?

The few changes I think I have to make are:

• Add in a few more highlights in the water(it is hard to get true whites using wet-in-wet blending)
• Make a few minor changes in the trees

But I certainly don't want to over--work it.
Overall I am extremely pleased! If you have any comments for me, please send them along!
I hope to get back to doing some pottery in week 12 - I have loads of things to glaze.







Close-up of painterly water reflections

Week 10 - Trees = finished

Bit of a busy week, but I have managed to get the trees finished. I had to mix up a whole new set of greens - but I think I've arrived at something suitably detailed and suitably blurry at the same time!

Without further ado...









Tackling that lake and snow bank in the foreground next week!

Week 9 - Surprise from the Kiln!

Feeling a bit under the weather this week, but have a few things to report:

2 tiles have emerged from the kiln!
The colour is differnt to the test tile I did, but they still look good! Perhaps the temp in the kiln was not the same or I put a heavier coat of glaze on the tile...who knows. Happy accidents!





And on the painting I did a bit of work on the hillock on the right hand side, which I am pleased with. I also did a bit of more work on the trees on the left hand side. Next week I hope to finish the trees and get started on the water/reflections.

Week 7 - Forests and craggy mountains

Watching the Winter Olympics has me thinking about craggy mountains and fresh snow...

This week I focused on the Montana painting and worked on 2 different sections:

• Mapped out the light/dark areas of the band of trees - I am not 100% happy with how this looks, the colours are not quite right either, but at least everything is in the right place and I have a good base for the future. It is a complicated part of the picture, there is so much detail in that area and I already know I don't want to duplicate every leaf. At the moment, it is hard to know how detailed to be. I do not want that part of the painting to look like Bob Ross style 'happy trees'.
  
• Mountain in the background - EXTREMELY happy with this. I've been able to show shadows in the snow around those craggy peaks with the pale blue paint. This part of the painting really seems to be 3-dimensional. Unfortunately I am not sure that this comes across in the photos very well :( But trust me, it looks great!
  

It was truly a joy to paint today! I was sad when I had to stop.

Trees:






Mountains:

Week 2 - Montana Painting Begins

Spent the morning trying to set up this blog - by 11am was fed up, so headed to the studio.

My parents have commissioned me to paint a large scale oil painting for their 'cabin' in Montana. The scale of the building is large so the canvas is large - 1m by 1m40 (56in x 40in) . Scary.
I was initially very excited but now it has dawned on me that I have not done a painting on this scale (in oil or watercolour) for a long time. Did I say it was a bit scary?

So first I decided to tackle that canvas and at least get something on it - the first job was to put the image on. We have been discussing this for some time - so we had our image picked out and had discussed painting style, etc. It is a very pretty mountain scene with Sailor Lake in the foreground. Quite traditional, but I think a nice image with a lot of potential. I've put that on the canvas with the help of a projector...sometimes technology is so great!

The second job was to work out the colour scheme - I want to vamp up the original colours (a la California Expressionism) so I followed the process I have used in the past : I did some preliminary watercolours before starting in with oil. This would also help me get to 'know' the composition, which would allow me to make decisions much more easily as I was painting.

To be honest, I am not that happy with the watercolours - but I guess it is better to be unhappy with a watecolour that took you an hour, than a painting you've already spent 20 hours on?

The first watercolour was was definitely over-worked. Sometimes you have to take things too far before you know how far too far is - if that makes any sense.
The second is better - I'm making some sense of how the trees are 'built' which is important as they run right across the middle of the canvas. I'm happier with the sky colour - a nice cerulean blue. The colours of the mountain in the background are still stumping me. The colours overall are not unified enough. So definitely need to do more work there.

Next step is to get some larger, and lightened printouts of my mountain image and keep going with the watercolours until I am happy - and then we can start in with the oil!