Two makeovers: Paintings five and Six

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Here are paintings five and six, both done in the studio and are do-overs.  If you are serious about painting you will find yourself wanting to constantly redo paintings that didn't quite measure up.  It's an irony unique to painting that the better you get the more critical of yourself you become.

Anyway, I decided to use two different techniques in these paintings and since the composition and value studies were already done I was able to complete both paintings in about one hour.

In the tree picture I started with the darkest darks so I could establish the sunny day pattern of shade and sun.  I'm still working on painting pines and other local trees at Castle Island so I'll probably do this one a third (or fourth) time.

The Gas Tank picture was done in a looser fashion.

First I saved some white shapes with masking fluid, when that was bone dry I  soaked the paper and after a few minute wait I laid in an initial wash which constituted the lightest values of each color in the picture.

When that dried I overlaid each section with increasingly darker values.  This is a cool way to paint.  The paper accepts color like a damp sponge soaking up water.  It is a nice feeling and I highly recommend it for atmospheric studies that don't require hard edges or high contrast like a bright sunny day (which are few and far between around here anyway).  Good luck and happy painting.

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Attached Files   

The Gas Tank.jpg	BobbyFarrell	Jul 22, 2009	1.11 MB
The Trio.jpg	BobbyFarrell	Jul 22, 2009	945 KB