In the Beaver Valley

Driving home from a day of skiing we passed by a scene from the foot of Old Baldy in the Beaver Valley. Today I decided to paint it from reference.  My Sister in Law, who is beginning to paint, watched the process as I chatted along.

Driving Along, 12x 12, Oil on Gallery Canvas

Looking at this photo it is hard to believe that we have fresh snow conditions.  The photo was taken inside the studio, so the camera was fooled even when the light was corrected.  The eye works the same way with apparent colours caused by the effect of surrounding colours.

The other challenge here was deciding what to include and what to leave out.  I painted directly starting with the barn on top of a wash of Ultramarine and Alizarin.  All the other masses were painted minimally thereby subordinating them in favour of emphasizing the main character the barn.  This rather set back my Sister in Law.  She wanted to put things in that did not exist, including a horse.

I will take another photo in daylight to see how it reads.

In the studio today I had a larger palette that what I use en plein air.  I just leave the piles of paint for the next day and add as I see fit or as I wish to experiment.  Today I had Mineral Violet, Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Viridian, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Middle, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin, Yellow Ochre, Transparent Red Oxide, and Titanium White.  I used my primaries plus Viridian, Mineral Violet, and Cadmium Lemon Yellow the most.  Like Viridian, Mineral Violet is a great weak mixing pigment.  it is hidden in numerous colours in this painting.

I used a #14 bristle flat for the wash and most of the painting.  In addition I used a few other bristle brushes, a palette knife, and a #8 Langnickel sable.  I use the sable for some drawing and also quite brutally for some thicker passages of ragged effects where I push on the brush and splay the bristles which are heavily loaded with paint.

Comments are welcome.