First, where the hell is everybody?!?! Come on People! We need posts here, besides Geoff and I, and Brandt.
So, I'm teaching Painting I this spring, so I scraped the palette, dug the solvent out of storage, and bought a few new brushes so I can start the process of endless frustration that is painting.
I'm using the same palette as my students: cad red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue, and raw umber. And titanium white. I like controlling shadow temperatures by shifting from umber to blue.
And speaking of, I painted this one first, a standard photo from the top of the Zugspitze. I entirely used umber, blue and white, and I think I still got a good range of color. I started with an underpainting wash, but used both colors, so I could control temperature from the get go. I also altered the snow so that the lightest value would be that spot just before the deep shadow, to create a focal point.
This next one had a shorter duration but was much harder. I wanted a sort of alla prima approach, so I had no underpainting, just a blue field. I have a much easier time with an identifiable form, and in dealing with just shapes of value and temperature, I get lost. The chroma is a little stronger than in the photo, I had a hard time getting it.
I plan on pumping out a few more over the break; maybe I'll post them.
3 comments:
These are really nice! I think they are both very successful images. How big are they?
You've really utilized 'contrast as focus' in the first one. And everything looks accurate in both.
Now, I would say that you should really spring for the coup de grace. Right now things feel safe and about 80-95% complete. Those next moves will make it or break it, but you'll learn a good lesson either way.
I suggest that the final step is 'detail as focus.'
The first one is the most realized, but it just needs that little 'oompf.' Probably some further detail to the rock around the focal point, so that it really catches your attention. Not necessarily along the entire perspective plane of where the focal point is, but just the focal point.
The second image is a little more tricky. It could maybe use a little more of a gradiated contrast in the trees right in front of the sun burst. Like, darker at the tops and bottoms of those trees, but lighter where the light is flaring around the middle.
Also an interest in detail might be best served in the snow ground-plane, to emphasis perspective if you can use level-of-detail to help create a more receding space from the POV. Right now it's just shapes that are creating the perspective. Also, I'd finish up the sky/upper branches area, just so that it doesn't read as unfinished strokes of purple.
Great work! Just need to drive it home.
on the mountain painting seperate the foreground from the background with a glaze, alizarin perhaps
i completely agree with geoff and vince about the first one. i think more detail in the closest rocks would be awesome. and we all know you can do rocks in great amounts of detail. one thing i feel i'm constantly trying to learn/remind myself is that i'm more interested if everything’s not in the same amount of focus.
on the second one i disagree with geoff, i like the lose purple marks. it's nothing i've ever seen you do. i think they look direct, confident, and painterly. i wouldn't touch the top. i don't think you need to do anything to the second one. have you ever looked at glenn deans work? he's a plein air painter, i really like his work and i've learned a lot from looking at it. i think at the very most you could sharpen the horizon line, or the bottomish of the trees, but i don't think it's necessary.
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