Tag Archives: landscape painting

Oct 23 - O-Early-Thirty, and the Backlit Painting

October 23rd, 2008 | By Elin Pendleton

This morning’s sun had not yet washed the valley, and I have a grin bright enough to cast some shadows anyway! This is yours truly, on *KS Rubin this morning, famous enough to have his OWN web page! Not often does one get to ride such a quality horse; I am still pinching myself. What a rush to have this power and grace under me as the sun later came to warm the hills. Then it was on the scooter to run errands and home to chores, after this amazing ride-at-first-light experience.

But I’ve digressed… back to painting! Since resuming a more stringent riding schedule, the paintings have been easier to produce, and this backlit landscape is no different. Getting to the easel is exciting and I’m loving every moment of it.

This 24 x 30 oil is at the stage where it is time to think about getting those horses under the trees, and leaving that bit of warm to capture the eye tells me that regardless of my source material for the horses, they must have dappled sunlight on them! Unlike the earlier misty morning, this painting has sunlight to contrast with the darks of the trunks, and I need to keep that in mind as I paint it.

What’s happened since yesterday is the detailing out of the trees, the “flutter pattern” of leaves on so many levels, from deep shadow to light. This breakup of the larger shapes creates visual exitement without creating unrest in the viewer. There is no clash of color here, just a “flitter” of leaves in the trees and grass blades in the foreground. In doing this, I try to be harmonious with the earlier, larger layers, so the contrast is not overwhelming in each area. I will have another complete pass on these areas to further to tone down and pull out details, leaving alone other areas. Sometimes I’ll use a glaze with resin gel, and others paint mixtures of three or more colors. That’s what I call the refinement stage. Lots to do yet!

This painting, when finished, might begin its show career as an entry into the Women Artists of the West show in Denver in 2009. It may or may not get in. Quality there is very high!

Saturday I head to the Art Expo in Pasadena to meet with friend David R. Becker, who’s teaching classes. And I’m also going to get some hands-on with the slow drying Golden Acrylics. Ought to be an interesting day. Hmmmm, I wonder if I should post whatever I do in the workshop? Gadfry!

You can see my entire blog here.

Color System information can be found HERE.

If you need to email me directly, please click here.

©Copyright 2008 by Elin Pendleton. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Elin Pendleton’s website.

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The Wolfe Cabin

October 23rd, 2008 | By Michelle Grant

The Wolfe Cabin, long gone, mowed down to make way for a new and improved mansion on Lake Windermere, B.C., is being *rebuilt* in a painting. Fond memories were made for the Wolfe family in this little cabin. Memories of swimming, laying in the sand, and campfires long into the night. Winter offered skating and warming by the woodburning stove. Now it is gone. All that remains of the Wolfe Cabin is a small 12 X 14″ frame, handmade with the wood from its wooden exterior, embellished with some of the original lichen that grew on it. This little frame is going to house the finished painting.
Commissioned by an investment firm, this is a retirement gift for Kevin, a long time client of mine. I originally painted a portrait of his cat Tabitha more than 25 years ago. I found my original reference photos of Tabitha and my plan is to sit her in one of the the windows of the finished piece, as a little surprise for Kevin.
Working on this piece is a nice change for me, from painting horses, and western scenes. I started this piece in late August. I took my french easel outside onto my deck in the backyard to work, enjoying the fresh air and getting into the *cabin* groove as a refreshing change. The attached image is the end result of this first, semi-plein aire painting.

©Copyright 2008 by Michelle Grant. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Michelle Grant’s website.

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Oct 19 - 90% covered and a Break

October 19th, 2008 | By Elin Pendleton

Yesterday you saw the blues going in. Now the canvas is 95 percent covered. I’m still in the cool box as I paint the rocks in the foreground with the “big three” sky colors, creating the illusion of their reflected colors from the blue overhead atmosphere. Variations on those mixes creates the visual interest there. You can click on the image to get a larger verson with more details.

Although the light area at the upper left is in sunlight, I painted it completely with cool mixes to keep it back there.

At this point, I stopped to take a photo because of the warms that are (finally) appearing on the grassy area across the water and on the rocks and pine needles in the foreground. I wanted to share with you the painting at this stage with the cools in place. Compositionally, do you see how the three trunks on the left mirror the lit three trunks on the upper right? Ties the whole image together with implied lines going between them–like a bridge across the water!

As long as the painting holds up with cool box mixes, adding the warms in smaller percentages will always enhance, not destroy, the composition and color balance. As I’ll be painting so much detail in the foreground, I want you to have a resting place, separate from the horses across the water. In fact, those horses will be much less prominent than shown by the areas unpainted, because when I paint them, I’ll pick colors and values that will have them blend in–just like the “Morning Pasture” painting from September 14th’s blog entry (opens a new page).

I just love a painting at this stage–the source material and the painting are now distantly related, yet the details that will fully tell the story are not yet in place. When you paint, do you put the focal point in first? How much more can you get, if you delay that addition until the rest of the canvas is singing along? Now that my canvas has the basic colors in place, the fun begins as I make each area more interesting to you, the viewer. Eye candy!

You can see my entire blog here.

Color System information can be found HERE.

If you need to email me directly, please click here.

©Copyright 2008 by Elin Pendleton. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Elin Pendleton’s website.

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Sep 10 - Starting a Large Landscape with Critters

September 10th, 2008 | By Elin Pendleton

Paintings follow me around… tapping me on my shoulder and whispering, “You need to paint me.” This 24 x 36 inch oil came from a photograph I took while in Georgia earlier this year (see below) and what intrigued me about it is the soft, misty light and value structure.

So of course I close up my warm boxes and know that over 85% of this painting will be in the cools. The initial lay-in is to establish the abstract structure, and decide where I want the viewer’s eye to go. My initial idea is to put some horses out in the distant pasture, yet create a texturally interesting foreground to allow the viewer to enjoy the journey. The small watercourse is a pathway around the tree and counteracts the lean it has.

Here’s the source material:

And on the Flash Cards, they are printed! Still at the printers, they need to be cut, so I pick them up tomorrow at noon! Now you can order them, since I’ve seen the finals, and am very pleased with how they have turned out. I’ve set up a special PayPal and text order form on my web site… HERE.
Or you can cut and paste the link below.
http://www.elinart.com/pages/flashcards.html
No more waiting!

You can see my entire blog here.

If you need to email me directly, please click here.

©Copyright 2008 by Elin Pendleton. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Elin Pendleton’s website.

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Death of a Scanner

August 22nd, 2008 | By Linda Shantz

Um…yeah…that doesn’t sound good!

I was going to scan one of my smaller, recently completed paintings to show you, but I think my scanner is giving it up. Never fear, I will take a photo of it, but for smaller works I usually scan them for the best print results. Guess I’ve got some shopping to do…

So now what? My landscape entry for last week is from a photo of a cottage sunset - something it looks like I won’t get to see first-hand this summer. This is 8 x 10 oil on Fredrix linen panel. There are still some touches to be done, but as part of my goal with this project is to see how close I can get to a completed painting in a single session, I will dare to post it even though I’m not completely happy with it yet. I guess technically I’m not behind again yet - I do need to get on this week’s entry!

Landscape painting copyright Linda Shantz, all rights reserved.

I have to admit I’ve slacked off in the painting department the last couple of nights. Okay, so I bought the second season of Dexter and have been watching that. At least I’ve only been watching a couple of episodes a day - though to be honest it was probably the broadcast of the Olympic Individual Show Jumping final that kept it to that! If I had any photos of Hickstead you can be sure I’d be posting about that tremendous GOLD he and rider Eric Lamaze captured yesterday.

All right…this could possibly rate as my most boring post ever! Rather than babble on, I’ll leave it at this, and catch up with you all when I have a photo of the painting I intended to show you!

©Copyright 2008 by Linda Shantz. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Linda Shantz’s website.

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Landscape Study #19 2008

August 14th, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

Landscape Study #19 2008, completed August 13, 2008.

This painting is all about space.

The space between the large tree in the foreground and the tree in the middle ground; the space between the middle ground tree and the trees in the background; and, finally the space between those trees and the sky.

That final space is less obvious than the others. It is, for the most part, assumed in most landscape art. The sky is always understood to be a long way off.

The idea of painting distance (or space) is not a new one among artists. It’s not even new to me. Most of my Flint Hills landscapes, large and small, are more about capturing the sense of space that is so prevalent among those hills through the use of value, color, overlap and other composition tools.

Landscape Study #19 2008 uses overlap primarily, but also value and color. I am especially happy with the trees along the horizon. They were painted in after the other two trees were painted. Generally, I work from the background forward, but with this one, I put in the major elements, then added the background.

Landscape Study #19 2008
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping

I also finished the 4×6 small format painting I’ve been working on. I even signed it so it’s officially finished. I had hoped to photograph it today, but was awakened by thunder and the sound of rain, so unless the skies clear before the end of the day, the photography will have to wait.

One new small format painting (5×7) and one new ACEO landscape were started yesterday. I also worked on an ACEO landscape that is about half done (one of the eight in progress). My goal for the year is 52 ACEO landscapes. That works out to one per week.

That’s not a bad goal, even if I have fallen way behind! Here’s to challenge!

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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Landscape Study #17 2008

August 11th, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

Landscape painting ACEO by Carrie Lewis. Copyright 2008, all rights reserved.Landscape Study #17 2008 is my landscape painting for the week of August 4, 2008.

It is an original ACEO landscape painting, so it doesn’t qualify as a small format work, but it is a landscape and that was the primary goal for this particular challenge.

It was painted over a toned multiple-gessoed archival mat board card using primarily five colors: Cerulean Blue, Sap Green, Yellow Ochre, Azo Yellow and Titanium White.

In some areas, the toned surface was allowed to show through and in others, the pattern of brush strokes and the use of transparent colors only thinly veils the color beneath.

This original ACEO painting was completed Saturday, August 9 after two days of work.

I also worked on three others during those two days, but they were not ready to call ‘finished’.

During those two days, I did work on the 4×6 small format, end-of-day painting originally intended to be the Landscape painting challenge for the week, but I ended up wiping off most of the paint I put on it and that meant some additional drying time was necessary. Hopefully, this week….

Landscape Study #17 2008
3-1/2 x 2-1/2
Original Oil on gessoed archival mat board
$25 unframed plus shipping

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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Landscape A Week - Week 6

August 8th, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

Sunset painting on artfix canvas by Carrie Lewis, copyright 2008 all rights reserved.This is my Landscape A Week painting for the week of August 4.

I was reminded by the comments of a visitor at last week’s exhibit with the Delano Chamber Players that end of day scenes are bright and colorful and fun to paint.

So when I sat down to paint on Monday, a sunset was what I decided to paint.

This one is a 4×6 oil on Artfix unstretched Belgian linen canvas.

This canvas, which is a very nice weave and is oil primed, was a rather interesting thing to get used to painting on. It is not at all like painting on commercially prepared cotton duck canvas, even if that type of canvas is gessoed two or three more times, which was my practice.

Artfix is silky smooth, very sturdy and the oil priming is a joy — and a challenge! — to paint on. But, all challenges aside, I don’t think I would ever go back to cotton duck and I’m not so I would buy pre-stretched canvas any more. It’s a lot easier to stretch canvas the first time than it is to re-stretch a factory stretched canvas.

Other than two or three very small pieces, this is my last piece of Artfix.

Time to start scraping pennies together for another piece!

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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Landscape A Week - Week 5, Finished

August 5th, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

Landscape painting copyright Carrie Lewis, all rights reserved.This is my Landscape A Week painting for last week. Yet to be titled, this painting was finished on Wednesday or Thursday of last week…

Until I sat down to paint yesterday.

I knew I should have cut it off the back board it’s mounted to along with two other 4×6 pieces of canvas, but I didn’t. Consequently, I couldn’t resist putting just a little bit more paint on this one during the day.

Sigh.

It is so very difficult to finish a painting and leave it alone, sometimes.

So I have to move the official finish date on this one to Monday, August 4 and, therefore, do not technically have a finished painting for last week.

The good news is that I also worked on the other small format painting I started last week and started a new one for this week. So the objective is to finish one of those this week and maintain my average of one a week.

Weekly SMA Landscape #5 2008
6 x 4
Original Oil on unstretched Artfix Belgian linen canvas
$100 unframed plus shipping

I am also preparing to finish October Skies with some corrections on the horse. That will hopefully begin today (Tuesday). I won’t have much time later in the week due to scheduling conflicts Thursday and Friday evenings and an all day class at the gallery that will eat up my morning on Saturday. With God directing my brush strokes, I hope to have the portrait completed by next Monday but I can see, the way the schedule is shaping up, that it might actually take until the end of next week.

Writing continues apace, as well, though I didn’t do anything beyond blog and journal updates until early evening yesterday in order to finish a book by Kansas author, Deborah Raney, and to begin reading a book on starting a business by co-authors Cameron and Donna Partow titled Work With The One You Love. Both are great reads and well worth the ‘day off’ from other work.

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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A Gray Day in Concord, Part 4

July 31st, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

Landscape oil painting in progress. Copyright Carrie Lewis, all rights reserved.With the glut of things going on at home, church and work and some potentially interesting developments in other places, as well, progress on A Gray Day in Concord has not been quite as ambitious as I had hoped when I put it on the easel last week.

But there has been progress and, for the most part, I am pleased with it. The painting continues to develop one small step at a time.

Last night, for example, I blocked in the water with a mixture of Cerulean Blue, Quinacridone Magenta and Titanium White, with just a hint of French Ultramarine Blue in the lower corner.

Along the shore, I added some greens for the reflections of trees and grass.

I thought when I put the paint on the canvas that the colors were wrong, but when I looked at it again this morning, the error didn’t seem quite so great.

With so much of the composition now blocked in, I will also be able to make the kinds of general color corrections necessary to prepare the painting for the final phase

I know the grassy hillside is not the right color and I need to add more fall color into the trees. There are also some hints of crimson along the shore. Those adjustments can now be made after the paint dries.

I have also been preparing for the final work on October Skies, which is scheduled to begin next week.

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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Landscape A Week - Week 5, Part 2

July 30th, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

I ended up with just a little bit of studio time at the beginning of the day and a little bit at the end.

In the morning, I worked on Gray Day in Concord. That painting is coming along very nicely. All that remains to block in are the larger trees and the water. Then it’s detail time! I will be posting an update on that pretty soon.

In the evening, I worked on each of the two 4×6 landscapes that were started yesterday. I started them with linseed based oils, so while they weren’t completely dry, they were more dry after one day than the walnut based oils would have been.

I confess to having a headache and some mental bleariness by then (it was after 9 p.m.), so I didn’t want to work on anything ‘important’, either. These two little paintings were the perfect solution!

I began with this one. While the light areas were still quite wet, it was a simple matter to add darks to the trees and work on the water in the areas that were more dry.

In those areas that were still wet, picking up color from yesterday’s work only added to the overall affect of what I was trying to do.

There also isn’t much I can do with the sky, so I left that alone.

When I finished with that, I mixed some more dark green using Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Cerulean Blue with some Titanium White and moved to the other mini landscape.

For this one, too, I darkened the trees and filled them out quite a bit. But I also added highlights where I could, once again picking up some of the sky color.

In the water, I added more tree reflections and lightened the area near the far shore.

In the foreground, I used a small sable and slashing (carefully slashing!) horizontal strokes to suggest reflections.

They are both progressing nicely, but I still like the misty one best. The other one is catching up, though. They both still need some work, but it is quite a bit of fun to be able to work on them two days in a row.

Do I hear three?

Finally…

…a little bit of Christmas in July in today’s mail. My copy of The West Point Fitness and Diet Book arrived today. That means I can get started on getting back into shape. I tested out the book by checking it out at the library and liked what I saw (other than that walk/run part of the program).

I decided to buy the book and found an excellent soft cover copy for 99 cents. It could be the best 99 cents I’ve spent recently.

It could also be the most difficult challenge I’ve set for myself lately because it’s going to take a lot more work to achieve the condition I would like to be in than it was when the book was published in 1977!

I’m going to probably even have to diet! Oh no! That was never a factor in The Early Years!

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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A Gray Day in Concord, Part 3

July 24th, 2008 | By Carrie Lewis

Oil landscape painting of clouds in progress. Copyright Carrie Lewis, all rights reserved.Time to pick up work on this large landscape again. It has been sitting idle while I work on other projects, but now that those projects are in an idle phase, it’s time to get back to work on this one.

Tentatively titled A Gray Day in Concord, it is a 20×24 on Raphael Linen panel and is the first landscape of this size I have painted in quite some time.

Although it features no horses or animals of any kind, I will be treating it the same way I treat more traditional (for me) portraits, rather than as a landscape that can be ‘dashed off and left behind’.

My intention at the beginning of the week was to use this as my weekly landscape painting and to attempt to finish it by Saturday even though it is not a small format work.

That might have worked, but I ignored most studio work (and artwork of any kind) on Monday and didn’t paint anything but a small landscape that I painted with a knife toward the end of the day. Talk about dash it off and leave it behind!

I have worked on A Gray Day in Concord each of the following days, but have essentially repainted the clouds and it has taken two days to get that done given short amounts of time available in a very busy schedule. As I look at it here, I see I still need to punch up the highlights.

The original clouds were a little bit too brown for my liking, so I mixed French Ultramarine Blue, Quinacridone Magenta and a touch of Cadmium Yellow with varying amounts of Titanium White to make a more pleasing gray.

Beginning at the horizon, which I lowered somewhat, I repainted each bank of clouds.

I also began replacing the background trees, most of which were painted over, and put some paint on the hillside that slopes in from the right. I like that slash of lighter green against the deeper greens of the original paint layer.

Some of the sky colors were also added to the water in the lower right hand corner.

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Carrie Lewis’s website.

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