Monday, May 4, 2009

Plein Air Demo From May 1st Friday part 2

STEP6 Studio Finish:A couple days later I was able to work on this piece in the studio. Working from a photo I took of the scene I added the smaller details to finish the piece. I often use a flat screen computer monitor to view my photos. This shows the light and color much better than a print out would. In my field study I knew I was going to adjust the road and foreground grass colors later; so I just laid in a rough base of those areas. Here's the finished piece, Country Road 9x12 oils on board.

Step 5 Field Study Finish: So here we are with my finished field study for the Country Road piece. I have completed this in about 30-40 minutes by just trying to get the large basic shapes and colors down. I will have plenty of time to work on the details once I get back to the studio.


STEP5 Adding Basic Colors: Now I am adding the basic colors and adjusting the lights and darks to the trees and foreground. I have also painted the sky to get a sense of the atmosphere in the piece.


Plein Air demo Part Two. You can click on the images to see a large view.

7 comments:

Jill Berry said...

You manage to get a great variety of greens in your work. I noticed it in "April Pond" as well.
I enjoyed seeing the progression and the on location pics.
I switched to working from the laptop rather than printing my images too.

Don Bishop said...

Thanks Jill. Sometimes I think maybe I am a little too hard on the greens. It is tough up here in the Northwest because EVERYTHING is well, green.

I do some paintings more in the Zorn palette to help with this. He used red, yellow ochre and black as the main colors which gives you a nice retro look to the pieces. I may try a few of those pretty soon.

I love using my LCD monitor to paint from, of course now I want a large a 30 inch flat panel.

Jill Berry said...

About trying different palettes and mediums. I did notice a different tone to your plein air work compared to the ones like on your profile shot. I wondered if perhaps you used a glazing medium with transparents to get the GLOW ??

Don Bishop said...

You got that right Jill. For most of my larger studio works and some of those smaller you are talking about I use a more classic approach. I do a fairly thin under painting with very soft tones and build up from there. Of course those take a lot longer to finish but I guess that's why we get the big bucks for those ;)

My glazing medium lately has been M Graham walnut/alkyd medium. Certified non-toxic which is way cool and it still dries pretty fast (a day or two) if you use thin layers. I love the no fumes part of using this medium. I also like the Gamblin Galkyd mediums very much. But they are pretty strong and don't agree with me if I use them too heavy. So do not use those much these days. They dry real fast though.

In my skies I put down real thin layers that are pretty close to light grays until I get the clouds and light looking right. Then I go on top with a thin layers of color and build up until it glows. About two or three passes will do the trick. Just go with small amounts of color and work up. You will see it when you hit the sweet spot.

Give it a try sometime.

Jill Berry said...

THANKS for sharing your secret ingredients and recipes.
I usually use straight-up paint because I don't know much about mediums. Just today I read the tiny print on a dozen tiny bottles and left the store with canvas and white paint. After deciding on some Alkyd, I told myself it was probably the same as the Weber Liguiglaze that I ordered from Jerry's. I'm also trying their Res-n-gel, a thicker and nontoxic quick drying extender.

Karen Bruson said...

SJ, Thanks for leaving a comment on my blog. You are such a great painter! You're painting is so much better than the actual scene. I like how you pushed the values of the darker trees in the back.

Don Bishop said...

Thanks Karen, I am following your work now : )