Sometimes I wonder if I paint only as an excuse to make frames for the finished paintings. This one, made from #2 pine, ripped and routed from board stock, and constructed with biscuit joinery and glue, is for “Approaching Storm” which is still on the easel.
I used my largest flat bristle brushes to apply this second layer of paint, still mainly blocking in shapes and values, still trying to cover the canvas. The only colors on the palette so far have been cadmium red medium, cadmium lemon yellow, ultramarine blue, and titanium white, all from Gamblin.
Warm greys, cool greys, various blues… Time to put down the first layer of paint to cover the canvas.
I spent the morning trying to save this, but finally decided not to waste any more paint on it. I can always cover it with a thin oil ground and reuse the canvas. A number of my successful oil paintings have failures underneath them, actually.
I spent another four hours of studio time on this. I might decide to finish it this weekend at home. We’ll see. Here is how the painting progressed during the session.
This is how it looked at the beginning of the studio session.
…And this is where it was when I took it home. Not one of my better efforts.
This is the still life I recently began in my current Indirect Oil Painting class at BSSS in Staunton, VA. The first four sessions are for a still life like this, with the objects chosen from the variety of stuff in the studio classroom. This is how it looks after two sessions, with the third about to begin. The colors are still dark and subdued, but the composition is pretty much set.
The watercolor “Two Stacks” was never finished - more work needed on the roof and shadow areas. I recently dusted the 2013 watercolor off and finished it. Here it is reframed and ready for someone’s wall.
Thinned ultramarine blue, general shapes, the beginning of what is light and what is dark.
This will use a photo I took as reference, a storm that was just coming over my house, casting the nearby trees in shadow, while in the east, beyond the Shenandoahs, the clouds are still catching the full afternoon sun.
I decided to add a center brace to this, even though it is just a 30-inch span, because these medium-weight stretcher bars can sometimes bow. From now on: heavy-weight stretchers; it's not that much more expensive, after all.
Also in the studio, on the board, is a new watercolor, another 'roofscape' called "Antennae".
