Skywatch Friday: The Layers of a Painting

 I started a new painting a couple months ago.  I tend to paint landscapes from various national parks, primarily Yellowstone, so this time I thought I'd paint something a little closer to home and actually do a Colorado painting.

This is the Garden of the Gods from my favorite view point in the park.  You have to hike the Palmer Trail to get up here.  I thought it might be fun to show you how a painting progresses.

Step one is the sketch and the underpainting.  I take my photo and mark a grid on it then I pencil in a matching grid on the canvas (you can barely see the lines above).  Then using that grid I use raw umber paint to sketch the outline of the main features.

After the under painting dries I added color to the big areas of the painting mainly the grass and sky.

Then I started adding color to those big red rocks.  This can be a little tricky.  You might think it's just various shades of red, but the sky reflects off those rocks so there is some shades of blue and even a little purple.

Let it dry for another week then start adding in the vegetation. 

Another week of drying and then it's time to start on those dang clouds.  I also started work on the rocks in the foreground.

The following week I continued work on the clouds, started one of the trees in the foreground and added some grass detail to those rocks.  You may think clouds are simply painted in white, but they are flowing features that are shaded underneath.

The next week I finished that tree, started another tree and continued adding vegetation and other details to the foreground.

When the next week rolled around I removed one of the trees I added previously and replaced with a Rocky Mountain juniper tree to accurately reflect the vegetation in the park.  I also adjusted the color of the grasses to more closely resemble my photo.  

My instructor took two weeks off so hopefully I can finish this next week.  I plan to add a pinon tree to the right foreground and work on the far background plus any other last corrections that need to be made.

When you question why artwork seems so expensive you need to realize just how much goes into a painting like this--multiple layers (with oil paints anyway) and weeks and weeks of work.

Not to toot my own horn, but my photos don't do this painting justice.  My instructor says when people come into her studio they think it's her work which is the highest complement I could ask for.  She says I could easily sell this painting in the local area.  I'll try to remember to post a pick when it's completely finished.

Speaking of my instructor, she recently had a seven page layout in Southwest Art.  Check it out here.

I recently finished my saguaro painting from Cave Creek.  

This was a plein air painting that is supposed to be finished in one session.  I brought it home and worked on it a little more.  My yellows and blues kept getting absorbed by the greens so I had to keep refreshing them.  I'm pretty happy with it.

That's how I've been keeping busy doing the pandemic.  What is your passion?

Linking with Skywatch Friday.