Day 3 - Lakehouse

Day three of working on the lakehouse.  It was cloudy that day, so I didn't really get to paint as long as I'd have liked.  Since I'm depending on the outside light I can only work when the light is right.  At our other home I had plenty of light in my studio area, but I also had some overhead flourescent lighting.  I had daylight style bulbs, full spectrum.  It was close to natural light so I could paint at night.  There was a time when Tony was traveling alot that I would stay up and work nearly all night long.  Once I get started painting, I don't realize how much time has passed.  It's very engrossing for me.

I worked on the sky areas on Friday.  They are always a challenge to make clouds look like clouds.  It's easier in a plein air painting cuz you can just put big swashes of color in there, but this painting is more detailed so the sky needs to be a bit more detailed.  Plus, I had to wing the clouds because the day I took the pictures it was a blue-bird day and not a cloud in the sky...

I wanted this painting to be a remembrance of a bright sunny day with just a touch of Indian Summer, thus a few touches of fall color in the distant trees.  I was trying to get away from solid green.  On the clouds, I first took some white and blocked in where I thought the clouds would direct the eye to the center of interest.  I did not want a white cloud behind the roof of the lakehouse because there would be no contrast. Too much the same color.  So I played with the clouds for a bit until I felt satisfied with their placement.  Clouds are not solid white - if you really look at them, even white clouds have other colors in them reflected up from the ground or from other clouds.

I have the clouds blocked in now, and after they dry a bit, I will go back in and put more subtle colors and modeling into them.  I also worked on the background trees and will suggest some trunks and branches.  Not much detail because it will bring them forward and I want to keep them simple and in the distance.

Don't know if you noticed but in the photo that I'm working from there is a small skinny tree right in front and on the left side of the lakehouse.  It kept bothering me that it was in the way. So I moved it.  I'm moving it to the left of the lakehouse so it won't block the view.  Just a small dab of "artistic license" there.  I painted it out but you can still see a bit of the green foliage that will disappear when I work on the lakehouse.

OK, foreground.  I'm thinking about the foreground.  There is a huge expanse of nothing in the foreground except a hay pasture with short hay.  One has to think a little outside of the box here.  We want to keep the painting and the EYE inside the painting, so I am going to include those dark shadows in the front there.  It helps to "frame" the painting and not lose a wandering eye off the canvas.  Notice how other artists handle this problem in other paintings you may view.  You may see a painting where the artist brings the eye into the center of interest and that's where you're supposed to stay.  This landscape's feeling is peaceful and serene and I want to keep the viewer's interest in the painting and have him/her linger there in that peacefulness.  In order to do that, I will create boundaries to hold your eyes there.

Sorry, there was an afternoon glare on the painting when I took this picture.  You can see where I blocked in some shadows in the foreground and will work on that next time.  I will go around the painting and try to draw the eye inside in all areas to keep it in the mood of the painting.  Below, is a black/white photo - just checking my contrasts.  Again, the glare.  But, it's also a great way to see if my painting is working and has good contrasts.  I think after I get the lakehouse done I will have better contrast in that area.  Right now it's pretty drab.  Working on the entire painting in the last stages I will correct and enhance certain areas, create more contrast with color, maybe subdue some areas, but I want the painting to have a rich contast of colors, darks/lights, warm and cool colors, and detail and soft edges.

Again, thanks for looking!  I have to work for a couple of days, but will be back later this week!

Next Steps

Thursday was a good day for laying in more color and doing some modeling on the elements in the painting.  I got a little ahead of myself - I don't particularly LIKE the blocking in part, and I got started working on the tree before I finished getting the canvas covered.  Had to go back and do the foreground later and make myself STOP on the tree.

I worked several hours on Thursday with good light coming in.  Today is grey so far, but I expect the clouds to burn off later this morning.  Here's where I started out from yesterday.

As you can see, I've still got to cover the foreground.  I'm also trying to make the decision to put the cows in there.  Should have had all this worked out on paper beforehand, but it was kind of an afterthought.  That's what happens when you haven't painted in awhile!

As you can see above, I am beginning to do some modeling and bringing form to this tree.  It's an oak, and when you look at them, sometimes you can see big clusters or balls of masses of leaves.  So that's where I start.  Get the big masses laid in, and then go back in after it's a bit dryer to do some fine tuning.  Oil painting is a process of layers, laying in darks and basic shapes, and then continuing to model and shape, bring some to the fore and pushing some to the back.  This can be done with saturation of color, with warmth and coolness of color, with contrast and with defining sharp edges and "losing" edges.  Warm colors bring things forward, cool colors push things away.

A big studio piece like this takes time and lots of layers (at least for me it does).  When I go out to paint on location (and I will do this for you at times, too) I use a small canvas and paint everything "alla prima"  or all at once - with plein air painting, you try to capture the big shapes, the sights, the sounds, the air, the mood.  Plein air painting is great exercise for you have to paint quickly because of the changing light.  It's the best way to learn about color and contrast!

OK, I digress...  back to this painting.  As I was working on the tree my brush meandered over towards the lakehouse and I worked on the light and shadows here.

That little red thingie is the roof to a boathouse that I will work on later - just in case you were wondering...

Now, if only the sun would come out I could get started working on this painting this morning and make some more progress!  Have a great weekend!  Thanks for following along!  PS - if you ever have any questions about what I'm doing, just let me know.

Beginning again...

South Light --- Why South Light, you ask?   If you know anything about art, painting by north light is ideal - the sunlight coming in is indirect but bright and there is no glare. Even if it's cloudy, the light is the same all day long - no sun rays to shine across your paints and your canvas.  The contrast is perfect and not too bright and not too dark.

Here at my little farmhouse, space is at a premium. I have no north light to speak of. But I do have south light.  That would be my second favorite.  Granted, in the afternoon, I do have some sunbeams dancing across the living room floor. This is where I have my easel set up - the living room. When I scoot my couch and chair to the walls, I have barely enough space to move around and paint.  But if I move my easel away from the sunbeams, the south light will do in a pinch.

I bought myself a big professional easel several years ago with the proceeds I received from a commission piece. It is nice and heavy, solid oak and will last longer than my lifetime - maybe one of my kids will want it someday...

I started this painting blog because I think it will help me to be more accountable to myself.  I need to be painting - especially since I've cut back on work.  I LOVE painting.   Above is one of my small plein-air palettes.  When I had my studio, I had a big 24"x 24" thick piece of glass on which to mix my oil colors. Easy clean up, easy to scrape off with a razor blade if it dried.   From left to right my oil colors are the basic titanium white and a warm and cool of each primary color and a couple of extra colors as needed.  White, cadmium yellow medium, cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue and viridian green. These are my basics.  I add other tube colors that may be little harder to mix.  I have done paintings on location with 3 primaries and white.  You can mix all your colors with just these three colors (ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson and cad yellow light), and you can get a darker, richer almost-black with lots more depth than if you use a tube of black paint.  Much more interesting!  I never use straight black.

What prompted me starting to paint regularly again is that I was asked to do a commission piece for a friend of my dad's.  He has a ranch here in our area, and a lake with a lakehouse/recreation/party house on it.  It's a beautiful hang-out, and I've been there to hang out myself.  This is one of the lakes we go fishing on, too.  My dad's buddy and his wife live a short distance away from the lakehouse and they wanted a painting of it to look at in their home.  So....

I went a few weeks ago and took some photos of the place and had the owner select the view that he wanted.  Here it is...

He also raises black angus cows and I'll probably add a couple of those in there somewhere, too.  I have some photos of the cows.  I had an 8x10 printed to draw my sketch on the canvas and from which to paint.  I do a gray-scale sketch of the photo, and I usually do a graph of the photo to get the drawing to scale on the canvas.  I used to use stretched canvas and still do sometimes, but I prefer a stiffer support.  I have been ordering some professional grade oil primed linen canvases mounted on boards and I'm really pleased with them.  They will last even longer than stretched canvas and not allow the stretching, cracking and shrinking that a regular cotton canvas might do through the years.

Next step, the drawing...

Normally, I would take a little more "artistic license" on the way this piece is arranged, but when you do a commission, you do it the way the buyer likes it!

It's a little hard to see, I know.   Now, for the block in.  The first thing is to thinly put some base colors on the canvas and get that stark white covered up!  Otherwise, you might find a few little white specks peeking through on the finished canvas.  Sometimes, you want that effect, but other times you don't, and with this painting, I do not.   So I begin by using some paint thinning agent and do some washes on the canvas...  This is what I got done today...

Tomorrow, I will continue blocking in and then begin laying in some thicker paint, more modeling and start giving some basic shapes to the structure, the trees and the lake.  It's important to work a little all over the painting so as to keep things connected.  If only one part is worked on and finished, it won't look right as the painting progresses.  It is a constant process of light and dark, warm and cool, fore ground, middle ground and back ground, hard edges and soft, correcting design and making sure the "eye" flows through the painting.  I hope I can accomplish all these things - it's alot to think about!  Can't wait til tomorrow!