Paint Out with Ian Roberts

We met at the park.  Ian's demonstration was more of a class than a paint out.  The thought behind the class was that if you were going to contend for the attention of viewers in a show than you would have to master color intensity.  The reason for mastering color intensity is that you want the viewer to be interested in your painting.  A contest boils down to keeping the publics attention on your art and not someone elses.  If you can not master color intensity then your paintings will be like loose cannons.-

Ian went into detail about the key to keeping the viewer in the painting is mastering where to pop your color by controlling the color intensity everywhere else in the painting.  Keep the foreground intersting but under control by using muted, saturated grays so that your area of interest really captures the attention of the viewer

Ian went into what his pallet consists of and why.  His focus in the discussion was to establish a consistent base for the artist to work from.  His suggestion was to make everything familiar from the way you laid out the paint and arranged it on the pallet to the colors you used so that you could better focus on mixing the colors.  His pallet consists of a warm and a cool color of each hue.  Ian said the first step of the excercise could take the whole day. The most important thing was to be able to match the colors we saw and wanted to include in our painting. If we are to manipulate the attention of the viewer through our painting we must be able to realistically match what we see and put it in our paintings.  Once we were able to match the color chips that Ian provided us; his direction was to then paint an equally intense but different color that he picked below our color match.  There were only two pastelists and I was one of them.  It was very difficult to take an oil painting approach to mixing colors and to get them to match.  The effort above took a couple of hours.  You would be amazed how many colors I put into this

 

 

 

 

Paint out with Ian Roberts too



This was the other pastelist that was there.  She had brought a painting that she had worked on.  Below Ian critiques her painting.



Although we had been in class for four hours I still needed to paint so I walked down the road a little and got a decent start to this painting.

 

Painting in Orange Hills

The heat has gone and the fall seems to be here all at once.  Today the clouds were pretty outstanding all day.  I had spent most of the day working on a large oil.  They said it was going to rain; but I knew it wasn't going to.  I wanted to paint the clouds so I was going to have to be fast anyway.



This was a quick one.  I nailed  the clouds with a mid tone and then followed with the lights and then finally the darks.  I then went after the dark shapes of the trees and worked to the lights and finally the highlights. 

This pastel painting measures 24"X26".  It is painted on masonite with pumice gel and acrylic paint.

Painting in Box Canyon Park

The weather was changing and I did not know if I was going to be able to paint for long so I headed into the hills near my home.  The clouds were constantly changing but the hills had a saturated feel to them.

I set up at the edge of the park looking into the box canyon.  The masonite surface I used had the pumice gel and acrylic paint but Smaltz Hue is very transparent so you could see the masonite underneath it.

I tried to touch it once and leave it alone but I got caught up chasing the light in between the clouds.



Everything was flat because of all of the grays in the landscape.  The shadows started creeping across the foreground and as I worked the foreground, I decided to put them in.

The painting measures 24"X27". It is painted on masonite with pumice gel and acrylic paint.  I liked the hill on the left and the trees in the foreground but need to rework the clouds so they are moving more to the right hand side of the painting and smooth them out.  I also need to create more atmospheric perspective in the receding hills.

Dense Fog at Little Corona

Last week I went painting down at Little Corona Del Mar.  The fog created beautiful effects and atmospheric perspective.  The challenge of painting the light as it is changing is at times difficult; but trying to start and finish a fog painting is crazy!  By the time I had walked up to my car and get my painting set up the fog had already burned off to a significant extent.  I really like this composition.  I have never painted the effects of fog.  I think this has the potential to be a really great painting.  My oil painting has really improved in the last month so I am going to do a pretty large studio painting of this subject.  I am going to try and take my time to capture all of the subtle aspects.  I am not sure yet how I will handle the diffusion of light along the edge of the cliffs.  The transition from the blue by the top to the gray lavender at the bottom will be a challenge.

Painting in Corona Del Mar

The morning was so foggy it was hard to see any detail.  The fog burned off, the wedding was over and done, and the sun lit up the rocks.



I brought a blue ground panel with me after I came down and scouted around while taking some reference photos.  I had made a couple of orange pumice gel panels that I was thinking of using but the fog seemed to thick to use them.

I had to limit my subject because there were so many choices.  The shape of my panel changed my choices.  The intensity of the light on the rocks enhanced the atmospheric perspective when compared to the graying caused by the haze burning off in the distance.

Painting in the hills of Corona

I got out to the hills to paint around 10am. The hills were backlit and the temperature was climbing fast.  I was painting on masonite with pumice gel and acrylic paint.

This is my initial sketch that I worked from.

I really liked the feeling of light that came through in the painting.  However, I was not happy with the composition.  I did not feel like I got enough of the hills in.  I decided at this point I will do a quick sketch to solidify my composition.  I liked the size of the hills but not the way they were set upon the surface.

Plein Air Coal Canyon

I parked and walked into Coal Canyon State Park.  It was 2 miles to get to my spot.  The weather was still hot.  It got up to about 100.

I really like this location because of the atmospheric perspective.  I also like the rhythm of the hills in the background at this location.  I also like the patterns and color of the sage and buckwheat in the foreground.

I brought my new carbon fiber tripod which is very easy to use and some new Terry Ludwig pastels which I have not had a chance to work into my Heilman box.  My surface is a 24"X36" piece of masonite with Golden Pumice Gel and acrylic paint.

Plein Air Coal Canyon

One of my biggest opportunities with my set up is the amount of stuff I bring to paint.  These extra boxes of pastels are difficult to carry around-so I will merge them into my pastel box.  After a year of painting with these sticks in my box I am going to change up the mix in my box. 

I have started using a preliminary sketch before starting my painting.  In the past my composition has been a bit of a crap shoot-in that I have not brought all of the elements of the subject into the painting. 

Plein Air Coal Canyon

Plein Air Coal Canyon

The Elements of Drawing

This is the newest art book in my collection.  The Elements of Drawing by Ruskin.  I think this is a first edition from 1865.  I am excited to get started on this one but I have to finish The Elements of Compostion by Payne.

Painting In Chino Hills

I got started late.  The temp. was about 100.  I entered the park just off of Ridge Crest which is about 3 blocks from my house.  I walked into the park about 100 yards and set up.

I created a surface on masonite with pumice gel and some red acrylic paint.  It just felt like the color to paint on this afternoon. 

The surface was 24"X30".  The shadows raced into the canyon and hills lit up with the last hour of daylight.  The tall grasses in the foreground were tall and blocked my view.  Hikers and mountain bikers were accomodating as I was painting on a trail that was no wider than 3'.

The painting far from done but thats what you get when you paint large and start late.