Saturday, July 24, 2010

Going to Canvas

Now I am working in the studio from the smalls done on my Road Trip across the western half of Canada. These canvases, along with the smalls on board, will be featured in my show at the RedEye Gallery in Toronto beginning August 17.

Some of the canvases will be taken from the smalls, but most will be from reference sketches, photos, and memory.  It will be interesting to see the differences between these three approaches.

This painting was done from reference sketches and photos of Lake O'Hara.  I spent a few days there and my memories are quite vivid.  It is an incredible place.  My paintings were all done from the shores of O'Hara.  The weather was sunny and bright (after two weeks of overcast and rain), but the upper hikes were pretty much snowed in.  I was so excited by the beauty I had trouble settling down when painting on site.

East on O'Hara, 11x14, Oil on Canvas

The base colours were greens with a bit of greyed red.  Close to a split complement strategy.  To mix the greens I used Viridian as my base.  It is a great mixing colour and can be made cool, warm, or grey to any level desired by adding combinations of Alizarin, Cad Red Light, Cad Yellow Deep, Cad Yellow Light, Mineral Violet, and Ultramarine.  The sky has Viridian and Alizarin in it.  You can see these colours by changing the angle at which you view your monitor.  My setup shows them well when I look straight on, but when I look down the image bleaches out in the lights.

The painting was done with a #8 bristle filbert brush.  No cleaning, just wiping the excess paint from the bristles.  I also used a palette knife and alkyd gel medium.  The white was Flake White replacement by Gamblin.

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