My big Achilles Heel is painting large, studio works. I have a short attention span, so the thought of working a long time on a single painting doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ve worked as large as 3′x5′, but this work is 20×22″. It’s based on “Dry Stream Bed“, which I posted last month. I continue to requests for larger works, so I’ve got to figure this out.
I’m trying to keep the feelings of spontaneity and freshness found in the original. What do you think? Is it done?

Coachella Valley Running Dry - Oil on Linen - 20×22

Palm trees have beautiful strength, character and movement. They can make a great subject. While in 1,000 Palms a few weeks ago, I painted two field studies (one, two) of a view between groups of palms to the steep hills below. The two studies where done in different light conditions, the first with the hill in shadow, and the second, a smaller opening than the first, which showed the hill later in the day as it was touched by the late afternoon sun.

This one, my third, shows the light conditions with the light behind the palms, but looking in the same general direction. I used the reference photo in my studio, together with some of the color notes from the first two studies. Since I was in the studio, I remembered to take snap shots at various stages of development, and so have a little video made of snap shots tied together with iMovie. This has been posted on my YouTube channel (and added to a playlist I created of other painting demos).

click to view the video on YouTube

I can see this series holding interest, and think I’m ready to use these studies and paint much larger studio works. Stay tuned for those, I have this Friday off, so maybe I’ll dedicate the day to this task.

Here’s the final painting:

Through the Palms #3, Oil on Linen, 14×11

Here are the first two paintings using this basic design (click any to enlarge). What do you think? Any favorites or feedback?

Through the Palms #1 Oil on Linen, 12×9

Through the Palms #2 Oil on Linen, 12×9

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I wrote last year about the importance of working in abstractions, and in looking at some of my work lately, I feel I am trying to put too much in, explaining too much. These little detail bits of paintings below I think emphasize the importance of simplifying, and the kind of dramatic results you can get.

Wouldn’t these make completed paintings on their own?

While the high winds continued today in the desert, the class went on and Mark continued to help us focus on his tonal method. He starts by blocking in a single, middle value for each plane in the landscape (sky, ground, slanted, upright). Here’s a quick video that shows two of my studies today in the drawing stage to the completed study.

I painted as many small studies as possible today, to get feedback from Mark on following his technique. Here’s the first, a study done while hunkering down under the hatchback of my car (damn winds!)

Through the Trees, Oil on Linen, 12×9

I stayed hunkered in the shelter of the windbreak formed by my car for this next study, cliffs in shadow. I tried to keep in simple, again focusing on separation of planes of light.

Desert Cliffs, Oil on Canvas

The winds grew too strong by the afternoon, so we moved to the shelter of a nearby grove of palms. Did two studies here, both from a nice sheltered spot. I’m happy with the brush strokes and overall composition.

Through Palms, Oil on Linen

My spot in the palm grove was relatively sheltered, so I turned right and painted another scene through the palms, this time focusing on the distant hills, which were beautifully lit.

Through Palms #2, Oil on Linen

After completing back-to-back workshops, one with a colorist, the other a tonalist, I have some thoughts on the difference between two. Whereas a colorist (at least as practiced by Camille Przewodek) will start with very high-key, intense underpaintings and then tone it down with local color to finish; tonalists focus on values, often starting with neutral underpaintings, and then gradually brining up the color to finish.
Each technique has it’s uses. My thought right now is the tonalist approach is best for paintings that are more quiet, calm lighting, etc, whereas colorist approaches might be best for full-sun, colorful subjects. This is probably over-simplifying, but I’m going with this theory for now.

What do you think?

The “Sausage Fest” continued today (did I mention that all the students are men? I guess Mark’s warning to “watch out for rattlesnakes” scared some people off–not you, Camille! .

High winds cut today’s painting day short, but we hung in there as long as we could. Even while sitting in the back of my SUV, I had trouble keeping my easel upright. That’s why plein air painting is tough, man!

I did one complete looser painting that I quickly wiped off and erased from my memory and digital camera. I know I should probably talk about looser paintings too, and why they’re so. Well, this painting’s elements (ground, trees, hills, etc) where not INTEGRATED. They didn’t harmonize. I got to punching up a green here, an orange there, and in the end it looked like a couple different ideas all struggling for attention. That reminds me, I have a blog post coming up on the power of simplification in your design. Watch for that soon.

Back to today. Here’s the first stage, following Mark’s technique of laying in flat, average values for each of the planes of the landscape. I’d also started laying in the darks, so this is stage 1+. The is a very basic, transparent wash in of neutral color–roughly of the eventual local color family.

Next, I started to hone in the color and value of each plane. In this shot, the hills, sky and a bit of the near palms are starting to take shape.

Now my intuition said to stop at this stage, and luckily the winds forced the issue. It’s so easy to overwork a painting and continue explaining beyond the necessary. Know what you want to say, and stick to it. As you can see here, I explained the ground plane a bit more, and this photograph doesn’t shot it, but the nearby palms as well.

Thousand Palms Vista - Oil on Linen - 10×12

I’m really happy with this one!

One more day of class. Check in tomorrow.

Mark Kerckhoff choose a great location for today’s first day of class, Indian Canyons. These studies were done in Palm Canyon, at the bottom of the hill from the Trading Post.

Mark’s technique is interesting–very different from Camille Przewodek’s. He first draws with Indian Ink and water. You’d think such a drawing would be erased by the first layer of transparent paint, but no! It stays there. I guess this is a good or bad thing, depending on your approach. It may be distracting to have those marks there, but hey, paint’s thicker and more opaque, so it’s easy to cover if you need to.

He then washes in his first transparent paint layer based on the landscape planes described by John F. Carlson (from lightest to darkest): Sky, Flat Plane (eg, ground), Slanted Plane (eg, hillside), and Upright Plane (eg, tree). He selects a mid-tone gray wash in the middle of the darkest dark and lightest light FOR THAT PLANE. He then brings up the local color for each object.

Is a picture worth a thousand words? You bet, that’s why I took today’s demo pictures and made a little video on YouTube. Click to go to YouTube and watch:

Click to Watch

Here are my two studies for the day. Enjoy! BTW, either is far sale for $100 each–my workshop study sale! Shipping included!

Indian Canyons 1 - Oil on Linen - 12×9

Indian Canyons #2 - Oil on Linen - 12×8

Palm trees were made to paint–the palms a perfect brush stroke. I’m on my way to Palm Springs for a workshop with Mark Kerckhoff, stopping to paint where it strikes me. This morning I stopped at Refugio State Beach, between Buelton and Santa Barbara. I wanted to paint there all morning, but needed to time my driving carefully to get through LA between traffic jams.
Here’s today’s setup. This is a 12×16″ OpenBoxM lightweight box, with lots of paint. I’ve started experimenting with a couple of variations of violet, including Mauve Blue Shade (Windsor Newton) and Magenta.

In this study, I applied what I learned in Camille Przewodek’s workshop last week. I should have taken a photo of the underpainting! I used rich, strong color for both the lights and darks, then worked in color on top to get closer to the true color. For example, for the sky reflection in the water, I started with Permanent Rose and White, then added Manganese Blue and white.

Clear Morning Palm - Oil on Linen - 10×8″

Like all great workshops, I leave this week realizing how much I don’t know and energized to apply what I’ve learned to reach “the next level”. My goal is a bit lofty, and may not be attainable in one lifetime, but I really want to combine the compositional strength of Andrew Wyeth, with the poetic brushwork/expression of Nicolai Fechin and Segei Bongart, and the color sense of Camille Przewodek of the Henry Henche/Charles W. Hawthorne school.

Like Hawthorne, Camille had us focus on the figure largely in shadow, so we could explore the color of flesh in shadow. The study on the left is full sun, the right overcast light. She didn’t complete these to a level of “finish”.

Here’s my gray study study of a figure almost entirely in shadow:

Figure Study in Shadow (Overcast) - Oil on Linen

Aloha!

Another full day today painting! I took off a bit early to soak in the hot tub. Perfect. Tomorrow we paint the figure, which will be a nice change of pace.

Here’s Camille’s first demo start (Wai’oli Hui’ia Church, 1912). The lighting conditions were overcast. You can see how she starts with flat masses of rich color. No modeling at this point. She also knows where she’s headed, eg, the far-right middle spot of Magenta will end up being a clump of trees. She’ll work green into it later, but for now she’s making it a rich red to bring it forward, and due to the fact that overcast days emit a cool light, which means warm shadows.

Here’s the near-finish.

I really like the composition in her second demo. Again, the light conditions where overcast, so a cool light, warm shadows. Remember that everything is relative. She carefully placed color notes in relation to each other, both warm/cool and value.

Here’s the finished study.

As for my work today: the day shifted from cloudy to sunny every few minutes, so I split my canvas in half and worked back-and-forth, sometimes minutes apart! You really can’t paint “the light” if it’s constantly shifting, so if you’re painting in conditions like these, consider splitting your canvas, or bringing two to work on.

The sunny version on the left is just the start, it didn’t stay sunny long enough to finish. I’m happy with the gray day side. I went back-and-forth quite a bit between color spots to get them to harmonize and read (by value). Overcast days are a great time to learn, because you’re not “chasing the light”. Even so, the cloud cover varied quite a bit, so it was definitely a challenge.

Here’s the finish:

Wai oli Hui ia Church (Overcast) - Oil on Linen - 8×6

More mixed weather today, sun in the morning, overcast in the afternoon. I have two images by Camille, one for me. I only kept one as I spent the morning doing several starts, wiping off each start as I went.

Here’s her first start in the morning:

Here’s the near finish…she said she’d adjust a few areas, but it’s close and again shows you how she transitions paintings. Note the dark warm shadows in the foreground trees, the high intensity warms in the sky (that she later tones down to read as blue); and feeling of atmosphere she creates.

She then painted this study in the afternoon, with overcast light. See the difference?

And finally, here’s the only painting I finished today, the “Old School” (now shops). I don’t think the light key is as accurate as I’d like, but it reads well, and that roof was a blast to paint!

Old Hanalei School (Kauai) - Oil on Linen - 10×12