More under painting thoughts

More under painting thoughts

My last post was about painting outside Franklin. This past Wednesday I went back and got a lot of painting done. This painting was done in front of the farm house of the people that let me paint on their farm. I was looking past one of their fields at a farm on a parallel road. There was water standing in the closest field with mustard in the grass water sheds. With everything in the foreground along with the buildings beyond the fields, the scene is interesting to me.

One of the things I've been working on my pastels is the under painting. In this painting a lot of the under painting is showing through. What I'm trying to do with my plein air and field studies is use the minimum amount of pastel strokes to get the necessary information for the scene. In my studio paintings I'm doing my best to use the under painting as base to use intuition from. Since a lot of the decision making that is spontaneous is eliminated from working in a controlled environment, using the under painting in this manner is a welcome technique. I've also found that when laying down the darks in the under painting it is important to get the warm/cool shift in each shape as it comes forward/recedes. In the foreground of this painting, the field and water shed is warm red/green respectively and the red/green becomes more neutral and tapers off into a cooler version in each as it recedes to the next field. Keeping all this in line along with the higher values as things recede on that plane is a lot to think about. Throw in the fact it has to fit in with the next plane back and the next behind it, everything begins to become complicated quickly. Simplifying even more is the next big step. I think I do a decent job of it now but I still over think things and fudge decent ideas all the time. Perhaps next time that is what I will write about.

Out Driving

Out Driving

Today I had the best laid plans. I would drive to Franklin and paint down on the old square. After looking at the weather I started to have my doubts. It was supposed to start storming this afternoon and it was already an overcast day. When I arrived in Franklin there was a lot of people walking around down by the square which makes me not want to paint unless there are other people painting. It makes me feel like a spectacle when I'm the only painter. I just kept driving. I thought I would head down to Edinburg and paint with Rick Wilson but he was busy working so I headed home. On the way back I saw a side road that looked wide enough for me to pull off of so I took a left and went down it. About a mile off the main road I came across this scene. It was a trail back to a field that is probably going to be disked up within the week. While I was painting the owners of the land came up and thankfully didn't run me off. After finishing this painting I got another one in and talked to them before I left.  They were nice people and said I could come back and paint again so hopefully this is the start of a good little series of paintings from this farm. There is a nice stand of trees that acts as framing for a ton of paintings up on top of a hill to the left of this scene.

In the painting above I used a watercolor under painting on a handmade sanded paper panel. If the watercolor under painting has the values some what close the painting almost paints itself. Lately I've been working on letting as much of the under painting show through as possible and while the top half is almost covered, the bottom half of the painting has a lot showing through. I think getting better with value will allow me to stretch the under painting even further into the final work as time goes on.  Anyway its just a thought, tomorrow I will post the other painting.

More examples of my process

 It has been a while since I last posted about my process. Today I decided to reiterate on the last step. This is a still life that I set up and had done some thumbnails for. I liked the square format for this painting. Like last time I sketched out shapes first and then laid down a dark purple hard pastel for the value under painting. The values ended up being close to where I would like them to be besides the old jar. The next step is doing a color study while waiting for the under painting to dry. If all goes well that will be up tomorrow.

Examples of yesterdays post

 Yesterday I posted my process for creating a value scale under painting. The one yesterday didn't turn out as well as I would like so here is another example. This is of a still life that I completed today. The under painting is done with a dark purple hard pastel and then pushed around with turpentine. The values created with this under painting are very close to the final values in the painting. The most noticeable exception being the background. Since the primary objects are the primary colors I subdued the background and cloth with grayed secondary colors. In the under painting the background has dark and light stripes but as I was working I realized the vertical stripes needed to have less contrast because it drew attention up and away from the primary objects. With the under painting the amount of solvent used was more conservative than the one from yesterday. Also if you look back from a few days I did the color studies for this. The color studies looked good but the background had to  be changed as mentioned above. This is a small 6x9 painting and there will be a larger one following. This painting gave me a good grip on the changes that need to occur for the larger one to be a success. Practice and studying the process, if all goes well, will lead to better understanding of the subject and better paintings.

The next step in the process

 Following on Monday's post I would like to pick up where I left off. On Monday the first step was finding something that catches your eye and then creating thumbnails to emphasise that thing. Today I am going to talk about getting things laid down on your pastel paper.
Once the thumbnails are satisfactory I get a piece of sanded paper and lay down the outlines with vine charcoal. I have a lot of paper that has already been used so it needs to be wiped clean. If I am working with new paper the process is slightly different. Once the paper is fairly clean I lay down the outline which can be seen in the top photo. This is quick and just a reference for laying down my value scale. When laying down a value scale I use a dark purple but you could also use a dark warm color to get a warm effect for your shadows if you choose. From the photo below it is hard to tell what is happening but I'm simply pressing down harder in the darker value areas and using the slightest pressure in the lighter value areas. This should also be a quick process that gets masses filled in.
After I have my values set in I use turpentine or mineral spirits to push the pigment around. This step is to push the pigment around to fill in the background. It is the equivalent to using a wash in watercolor or oils. You are setting a map for the later layers to be derived from. During this step you have to be careful to not load up your brush with to much of the solvent or you will brighten your values up dramatically. As you can see in the bottom photo the solvent got away from me on the right side of the painting. The tree mass on that side had its pigment washed away with to much solvent. At this stage it is about responding to the pigment on the paper and it takes time to get used to. Once this step is done it will be a while before the solvent dries. Depending on the sun and wind it could take only a few minutes up to a half hour. It is during this drying period that I work on the next step of the process.

Kentucky Hills under paintings

 In yesterday's post I mentioned borders was having their store closing sale. Last night they had taken the prices down even further. I bought Richard McKinley's Pastel Pointers. I follow his blog on the artist network and have been wanting to get his books for a while now and with one on sale decided to pick it up.
If you look at his work the first thing you might notice is the under painting that shines through his pastel application. I've been using under paintings for my pastels for a while but only using pastels with turpenoid for the medium. Today seemed like a good day to try a watercolor under painting, so I did two of them. The first was one that I wanted to finish with watercolor and the second with pastel. He talks of arranging shapes in value masses that way you don't jump around the painting and exaggerate certain areas to an extreme. The reason I chose to do the under painting that would be finished in watercolor first is because while the pastel under painting is drying the watercolor painting can be quickly finished in a loose style. Then when the watercolor is done you can start on the pastel already warmed up. This seems like a good strategy for now and I will use this for plein air until I'm burned out.

This is the watercolor under painting for the watercolor finished painting. The thought behind this was to get everything massed in while staying at the lighter end of the value scale for the masses that way they could stay as highlights and be darkened where needed. I like the way the hills roll down in Kentucky. It reminds me of the car trips to see my mothers side of the family. I think the dark value masses frame the rolling nature of the hills well in this painting.

This is the under painting for the pastel that I will eventually get to during the second half of this round of paintings. I tried to get at the average value for the masses on this one. Also the value map changed on this under painting from the previous. I decided to push the tree above the foreground trees back to showcase it. The shape of it was interesting as it was the only one that fanned out and let a lot of the hillside behind it shine through.That will be a lot easier for me to show with pastels at this point than watercolors so i went that way in this painting.

Anyway if you are a fan of McKinley's I would recommend getting the book. Most of the stuff on it can be found on his blog, but it is nice to have a physical copy to flip through when you need some motivation. Also the DVD included with it was great and the ideas sink faster when you see him explaining them.