Oil sketches

I have been playing around with some small oil sketches in various differing styles to start to achieve the results I want. Newer readers of my blog will understand that I am switching from using Acrylic to oil paint, something that I have been working on for a couple of years now and trying to find a style that I really like.

I find that the only way to become comfortable with any medium is to really start to get the feel of the paint, and the only way to do that is to actually paint, the studying time is over for now!

From my last post I mentioned that I am using a Transparent Oxide Brown under-painting and working out my values, well, that has stayed the same but I have changed the ground colour to using a combination of Burnt Sienna and French Ultramarine wash, this allows me to warm or cool the ground as needed.

My medium has changed though as I was using Winsor & Newton painting medium on it's own, this I found to be too glossy, I have therefore made little combinations of 1:7 ratio painting medium to Sansador for my early layers up to 1:3 for later layers which seems to be working better.

This is pretty much what my early layers are like:

I use my bristle brushes for this stage as I like the interesting edges but also some parts of the under-painting are washes where I will use a softer brush. I like having the under-painting layer as it forces me to limit my values and I can see the design of my painting more clearly.

I have also been trying various 'next stages' to see their effects! I decided to do some little waterfall pictures, this is the under-painting of one where I am just working on the values and shape

I then decided to colour it in with translucent paint to give me a colour map, an ebauche I suppose, by the way, these are only on 9x7 inch canvas boards.

I let this dry before I then started to work in the third and final layer using both translucent and opaque paint. The advantage of this is that I can leave some of the second layer showing through the final layer which I quite like. Because I started working on to dry paint I carried on with my bristle brushes which gave the final effect a kind of pastel feel to it.

I'm afraid I struggled a little taking a photograph of this as I don't think my camera liked the canvas board, the final painting isn't quite as fuzzy as this!

I don't think this is the final effect I am trying to find but I wanted to try and it does give you an idea of just how many differing ways of working with oils there are and I want to find a way that suits me. I have already tried another couple of final layer ideas but will leave them until my next post!

On the easel

I've blocked an a couple of new small oils this week.
I'm carrying on the techniques I mentioned in my last post of using a transparent oxide brown oil under-painting to work out and limit my values to make a strong design before then applying some top layers.
I have then applied the second layer in both paintings pretty thinly using my bristle brushes making sure to keep my darks pretty translucent and my brush strokes quite loose.

I've also made sure of course to keep my colour temperatures consistent, something I have learned from experience but not always readily apparent working from photographs! Now the slightly warmer weather has arrived I will get outdoor and make plenty of colour studies for my reference as photographs do tend to blow out the highlights and flatten the darks.

These paintings have only the first colour layer applied and will have to dry out for a few days before I start applying further layers, I therefore always have about 5 paintings on the go at any one time to allow for drying.
Anyway, a painting day beckons so I better get on with some more work!

Underpaintings

I haven't posted a blog for a while so I thought I had better do some updates before you think I am the laziest artist ever!

Aside from my weekly teaching duties in Coloured Pencil, Acrylic and Watercolour I have been playing around with various ways of starting an under-painting for my oil paintings.

The first thing I wanted to establish was a good tonal value base but not have to many values to confuse the viewers eye, basically I want to have a variation of edges to make an interesting composition and leave some areas for the viewer to fill in.

I settled on, for now anyway, a white gesso ground with a wash of cadmium red and burnt sienna sansador thinned oil over the top, with the wolf having more yellow ochre added to it, see below.

As you can see the drawing was done freehand with a slightly heavier mix of the cadmium and burnt sienna mixture.

The next stage was to start blocking in values with Transparent Brown Oxide, being very careful to keep interesting edges and not put too much detail where it it isn't needed, this is the next stage:

I've used bristle brushes and wash brushes to keep my edges interesting as well as varying the thickness of paint, either straight from the tube or diluted down with a little Sansador. This is very much based on how I would paint my loose watercolours  but adapted for the oil under-painting, see below

I'm actually quite pleased with how the Wolf has turned out and for now quite like it just as it is so probably will leave it just as a value tonal sketch. I am however working on some other under-paintings in the same style but playing around with the colour of the grounds and also working on the top layers so will let you know how I'm getting on in my next post!

New Year, new painting!

Well here we are in 2012, new resolutions started and in a lot of cases already broken, in my defence haven't quite finished all the presents of chocolate yet!

I thought I would start a painting I have been planning for a while so here is my set up ready to go.

I have just finished the under-painting of the background trees (below) although in hindsight I think that I have attacked it a bit like a bull in a china shop, probably a sugar rush from all the chocolate! Today's painting session is going to be rather more considered and I think I will do an imprimatura of the fore-ground and mid-ground to make sense of the values and notan I had already worked out.

If anybody is interested there is a really good article in this weeks Radio Times on David Hockney, I like  his ideas about art and also agree with his views about today's artists, well worth a read.

Wolf Head Drawing finally finished!

I can't believe I started this way back in July! I kept doing other things then coming back to it, which can be a useful approach as there is nothing worse than being so bored of something you lose any sense of creativity and it becomes a chore just finishing a piece.
This is the finished drawing although not a great photographic reproduction as it is a beggar trying to eliminate glare back!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've tried a few new techniques (for me) and have concentrated on varying my edges to try and get some movement into the piece. I've put edges in, taken them out with an eraser and smudged almost to the point of sanding down my finger ends!
I also got to the stage where I stopped looking at the reference photo I had of the wolf as I wanted to play around with shapes, values and more importantly the flow of the piece. I do think if you try and follow your reference too closely you can limit your creative side and to be honest it is much more fun to explore an image and try and get a 'feel' of the piece, however it has taken me many years to realise this!!

I'm quite happy with the finished picture but wish I could photograph it properly to show the subtleties, I will trust my photographer friend to try and get a proper copy before it goes into a frame!

Holiday in the USA

I have just returned from a lovely holiday in the USA where I visited my good friend Libby for her birthday. It had been a rather event filled and not enjoyable few weeks prior to my visit to the US so I was looking forward to a break and thankfully it didn't disappoint!

I made the journey to Boston with my sister and her boyfriend and one of the first things we got to do was see an American football game, New England Patriots v Dallas Cowboys. A great event especially as we went tail-gaiting too, ie shooting the breeze with lots of other people, eating a picnic and drinking beer before the game...great fun. The gang below wearing very large football shirts!

On the 6th day there I had arranged a trip to Virginia to see the fall foliage. I managed to find a beautiful place to stay, Blueberry Hill Farm in the Shenandoah Valley where the accommodation and views were just fantastic, thank you Jean and Franklin (our hosts).
I did have plans to do a bit if sketching from the veranda but to be honest we had such an action packed few days all I managed in the evenings was to eat chips and dips and enjoy the view! I did take plenty of photographs though to paint later, here are some of them...

Stella the family dog also put in plenty of appearances throughout the four days we were there!.....

We did quite a bit of exploring around the region, even visiting Walton's mountain! The views really were lovely and I can't recommend it enough.

On returning to Boston for the final few days of the holiday I made sure to visit the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Gardner Museum, plenty of John Singer Sargent paintings to keep me happy!

On a sadder note, I mentioned that the weeks before my holiday had not been enjoyable, due to the fact that a dear friend of mine tragically lost his life. Shaun my framer who framed my last three exhibitions and had been framing for me for so many years that he became a friend sadly was killed in a collision on his motorbike. Not only was he an excellent framer but also a talented artist, Shaun Malkin all who ever had the great fortune to have met you will miss you loads.

The value of values

I have been working outdoors recently doing the occasional workshops but also getting out to do my own studies. 

One of the things I really enjoy doing is loose 3 value studies to work on the design and balance of my painting. Limiting the values really forces you to concentrate on the larger shapes and not get too drawn into detail which is useful for quick studies, needed outdoors, and also forces me out of my too tight illustrative ways!

Too many values can also lessen the strength of the composition and confuse the eye. The following were done using a large mop brush and Payne's Grey watercolour paint, the landscapes were done outdoors and the bird and animal studies in the studio. 

I like to do this to build up the shape and design of a painting first and think about what edges I will use, if it works in black and white hopefully it will work in full colour!