After a day of Travel

First night in Newfoundland found us eating fresh Cod from the pan. So good. At about 8:30 this was the scene as I finished eating staring at the water. So, run to the fish plant and set up. Short palette and a small board - the sun is going down on the wide open spaces.

Lobster Cove, 6x8, Oil on Board

Looks like yellow, orange, grey-violets, and greens. Paint direct to save time. Get the darks (in their apparent colours) in and go lighter. The white of the board showed as the lightest of the 4 value masses. Put in the lightest sky patch and carry the colour into the cloud mass reflections. Modify the edges. End up by breaking up the colour masses with variations that become apparent - careful with the values. Pack up and get ready for another day with a painting start in hand.

The painting was done with one brush - a #6 bristle filbert. The palette was Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin, Cadmium Lemon yellow, and Titanium White.

Gunners Cove

Well it proved to be too much for this artist to blog while away painting. I'll try harder next trip.

The truth is that the people and scenery of Newfoundland take one's attention away from communications. Here is a setup on the beach at Gunners Cove near L'anse aux Meadows at the far north of the west coast.

Settled In, 10x12, Oil on Canvas on Board

The painting is at the beginning of the early stage fill-in for the warm morning light. The preliminary warm colour in the water will assure that the water "stays in the sunlight". This simplified composition takes about 10 minutes to block in the colour masses in the prevailing colour key. Since I was limiting painting sessions to one hour, I generally only went to the second stage - adjusting the colour, value, intensity of the colour masses. If I was lucky I was able to begin the third stage of indicating the colour variations in the colour masses. From this level of completion I am able to complete the study in the studio or take the image to a larger painting. The key is to see the colour variations in the colour masses and at indicate them on the painting.

To this point I used a #12 bristle filbert and four of the pigments that were left out from the last session the day before. These pigments were, Cerulean Blue, Alizarin, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Deep, and Titanium white (basically a set of primary colours). The others were left for another day.

Wide Open Spaces

I have a show at the RedEye Gallery beginning mid September consisting of "Wide Open Spaces from Far Away Places".  The image below is from a sketching trip to prince Edward County where the material suggests, in part, wide open spaces.  It has put me in a frame of mind for the west coast of Newfoundland where painting will start on Tuesday.   Sand for rock, lake for ocean, space for SPACE.

Inner Sandbanks, 15x30, Oil on Canvas

This painting was done in a direct manner.  That is the basic colour of a mass was the starting point.  Here it was lemon yellow for the sky, a strong tint of orange for the sand, warm red for the water, and three cools for the trees as they recede - green, blue, purple.  Subsequent painting was a set of adjustments getting the value correct, the relative hue correct, and the colour variations within the masses correct.  It is all done by progressive observation.  The more you do, the more you see, the more you do and so on.  Paint thickness and edge adjustment were emphasized toward the end of the painting session.  The painting in Newfoundland will require quick direct painting, so this has been good training.

The painting was done with a #12 bristle filbert, and two #8 bristle filberts - one for cool colours and one for warm.  That eliminates the brush cleaning to help with speed.  The palette was Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Viridian, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Middle, Cadmium Orange,  Alizarin, and Titanium White.