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.