Venice - Finished!

Poplars II

Remeber this picture? I am presently working on version II. I would like to get a less detailed, more deeply coloured version of it.
So far the colours used are: Schmincke Cobalt Blue M; Schmincke Rose Madder O; Rembrandt Permanent Yellowish Green 633.5.

Why again. I was very happy with the original - but then I put up the mountains picture beside it. It pales a little beside the bold colours of the mountains.

Colour Studies I, II

I have been rereading a very great book on colour. Colour: A Workshop for Artists and Designers by David Hornung. (It appears that perhaps the US edition is differntly titled Color: A Workshop Approach).

Anyway - I am learning a lot more by DOING the assignments than from just READING the text. The pictures above are the results of Assignments 1 - a study using only grays, with wide value range and another with narrow value range - and 2 - study with muted colours, again narrow and wide value ranges. There are 16 assignments altogether, so it seems I have a lot more learning ahead of me.

I am reasonably pleased with my choice of values (as you can see from the black and white photo), however I found that some of my planned grays were a little colourful and some of my planned muted colours were a little gray. It seemed to me that targeting a particular value sometimes limited saturation levels which could be achieved. Then again, it also became very evident that defining exactly where gray starts and finishes on a continuous scale of saturation is a matter of opinion.

Canterbury Foothills

Two books which lately I have been reading have inspired me to try to paint more emphasis on colour and less on detail. Not because less detail is easier, but because a few of the paintings in these books looked jaw-droppingly great, without the detail that I typically try to achieve in many of my own paintings. First Wolf Kahn Pastelsand second Raw Colour with Pastelsby Mark Leach.

Both artists call themselves colorists (I am not an art historian, so please excuse me if I use incorrect terminology here). I cannot admit to liking all the paintings in both books, but some take my breath away. Maybe that's how it is when an artist interprets reality rather than copying it - maybe sometimes they get it right and intensify the emotional connectedness with the scene, and sometimes they don't.

First I painted the Poplar Shelter Belt (below), and in the last few weeks I have completed this pastel of the Canterbury Foothills. I have a long way to go before Achieving the jaw-dropping wok of the artists above, but I am very happy with my progress so far.

For the piece above I first created a textured surface by stretching a piece of watercolour paper and painting it with acrylic paint and a small foam roller. I coveredthe lower half with black pastel and charcoal, imaging that this would give the impression of shadows behind the wheat.

I like that 3 different textural finishes in the painting, the evenly blended sky, the carefully drawn mountains, and the roughly scratched in wheat fields. Each texture suits the subject very well.



The colours I used:
Sky: Schmincke Ultramarine Light (H, D)
Mountains: White, Schminke Blue-Green Deep (H, M), Caput Mortum Deep (M)
Hills: Winsor Newton Oxide of Chromium IV, Schmincke Bohemian Green (H), Grey Green II (B), Ochre Light (M, B), Olive Ochre Deep (H)
Fields: Scmincke Vanadium Yellow Light (O, D), Vanadium Yellow Deep (H, D), Permanent Yellow 3 Deep (D), Sennelier Orange Lead 37

New Bookshelf

I have gotten around to installing a new bookshelf at home. One of the shelves is reserved for my art books.

Poplar Shelter Belts

I came across a box of 40 assorted Sennelier extra soft half pastels in my local art shop before Christmas. Being difficult to find here and not having used them before I thought that, despite the expense, I would try them out. As well, I bought some sheets of almost sandpaper-like pastel paper. The Sennelier pastels were so very soft, and yet did not crumble, I loved the feel of them on paper.

Looking around I found a picture of a shelter belt that I was interested in painting, and I was also interested in trying out a impressionistic style, with emphasis on colour - well apart from my normal style. In the end I used only one Sennelier colour - the bright green (Apple Green - 205). I also used Winsor Newton Greens (Permanent Sap Green 3 and 4, and Oxide of Chromium 4, for the tree leaves. I used Schminke Cobalt Blue M for the Sky, and Schmincke greys for the tree trunks. I am happy with the picture although it isn't what I envisaged and so I will probably try it again sometime.


(480 x 670)