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:
Aloha again Ed… you have clouds and we in the Chicago area have another 2 inches of snow last night. Big snow year, but I’ve done a lot of studio work.
I know your time has been very busy, but if you have time to write, I would appreciate your input.
What is the difference between Camille’s under-painting approach and Ovanes?
If you haven’t been to Kauai before and want guaranteed sun…go to Poipu Beach on the
Southern Side of the island, just about opposite of where you are painting now.
Another place to paint very close to Poipu, is the Allerton Estate and National Tropical Botanical Gardens.
I’m going out to shovel now…:-) it was nice talking about the sun for a few minutes.
Tom
Ed, thank you for all of these wonderful posts! It’s great to see these progressions. I can see where she is going with the colors blocked in.
Great little church. I love what can be captured on such a small piece.
I’m amazed that you have the energy to blog after a workshop day.
Hawaii is so energizing, though.
Best to you!
Hi Ed, thanks for sharing all of this with us.
It is great to see her start and finish. It is so different than my usual approach. I have seen some of her demos before, but it is good to hear it from your point of view.
I like how you are using some of her ideas without being a slave to “her” technique.
Tim, this is a good question–one I spoke to Camille about. I will write a new blog post to answer it.
I do hope you snapped a photo reference for the sunny church painting because it’s got a beautiful sky, the trees are great and you really captured the good shape on the sunny side of the roof.Nice!
Funny, when I visited Hawaii for the first time, I was astonished to see all the New England style churches and houses. Of course, I found out that missionaries from the NE area had resettled there thus bringing a little bit of New England to Hawaii. It was not a painting trip but I should get out some of the old photos and paint them with todays knowledge. Maybe I will.
Again, thanks for sharing the workshop. I will enjoy enjoyed exploring the links you provide to the “greats”.
I hope you snapped a reference photo for the sunny picture because it has a beautiful sky, the trees are great and you really captured the shape of the light side of the roof so well.
Funny, when I visited Hawaii, I was astonished to see little New England-y churches and houses and such and of course learned that missionaries from NE resettled in Hawaii, bringing the influence with them.
Thanks again for sharing the workshop with us and for including the links to ‘the greats’ for us to browse!
thanks, Mary. I do have a reference photo of the church, but it’s not that great. As you know, with a camera, it’s really not possible to capture both the value of the sky and the shadow areas. The painting’s always better anyway, right? 🙂
Ed, nice value patterns on the top two pieces. I really like the middle one with the trees.