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| It rained the night before, so the light was amazing. |
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| My sketch is about establishing the composition. The values and the colors are never the issue. It is about making sure what I want in the painting fits in the painting. |
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| Here is my set up along the bicycle path as I prepare to start my painting. |
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| I started by quickly filling the surface with the basic composition. I made a point to not start working on any of the details or highlights. My focus was to keep painting as long as I can. |
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| The orange grove is the other subject of the painting so I painted it next. |
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| It had been a couple of days since I had painted and I needed to warm up. I took a hike around the rocks on the north side of Shaws Cove. As I hiked, I took pictures. I was building compositions in my camera frame. I could do a number of sketches to find the right composition, but it is so much quicker using the camera. I can take a hundred pictures in about fifteen minutes. |
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| Because the shadows were moving quickly, I drew in the values. I am usually more concerned with getting the shape right and let the values handle themselves. |
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| This is not a bad place to spend your afternoon. A bad day painting is better than a good day doing anything I can think of. I set my easel facing south and looked to my right to the west. When I set up my easel I am thinking about where the sun is and where the sun will be when the painting is finished. |
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I started with a notan in a complementary color. I like to start with complementary colors and then refine and develop my colors from there.
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| I focused on painting once I had gotten the initial shapes right in the notan. I worked until I had covered the entire surface of the board. |
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| From this point I made adjustments to the values and the colors. I was trying to make sure that all of the colors and the values related to each other. |
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| At this stage in the painting I started defining the details within the painting. I also started working the values into the lighter ranges. |
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| At this point I also started working the foreground of the painting. As I defined the shapes in the foreground and focused on their values, I made adjustments to the rest of the painting to insure that all parts of the painting related well to each other. |
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| All that is left is some last minute final adjustments. |
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| This is a studio pastel painting on Wallis paper with an under painting of water color. This painting measures 24"X 36". I have painted at this location about a half dozen times. This painting is based on reference photos that I have taken from those visits. I really like the distance of this landscape. The colors on the grass were amazing as well. |
