Lesson 1 :: Landscape #4 (your magic arrow flies with precision)
Labor day, I spent the day with my wife and our dog driving down highway 35 (which follows the river) in Wisconsin and then hiking the Iowa side of the Mississippi. It was a perfect day for some photography, so I shot a few pics from an observatory. Really great, awe inspiring views!! So of course, I have to paint some of what I saw using my photos as reference.
I am probably going to title this piece “Landscape #5 (your magic arrow flies with precision).” Titles are always subject to change as the piece progresses. It depends on what the painting is saying to me by the end. Is this how it would feel to be an arrow shot from the bluff? Makes me wonder. I listen to music a lot when painting. And sometimes a lyric is just the right title for my painting. Sometimes titles just pop into my head spontaneously, or from something I heard spoken, or from something written. Inspiration comes from everywhere!
The first step, always, aside from building the stretcher and stretching the canvas and drawing, is underpainting with burnt sienna. It warms everything up nicely. Underpainting color has a huge impact on the overall unity of the painting; even if you can’t see the underpainting color. I use this to make sure I have the values correct. First I draw with pencil directly on the canvas. Then I use my brush to enhance the sketch and begin blocking in values.
As you can see, I am already into the finish layers of the bluff and sky.
The sky is just dioxazine purple and titanium white, with just a touch of raw umber to dull the chroma a bit and warm it up. Remember, start darker at the top of the sky and then gradually move to lighter at the bottom. This is what gives the illusion of receding space.
Next, I mixed ultramarine, raw umber, and titanium white to get the deep blue shadowy color of the bluff. I thinned the blue with turpenoid so it would dry pretty fast. But I still wanted it to be a bit wet to mix color into it. The blue was also used for the bluffs farthest back. I added just a small amount of blue to titanium white. I also used a bit of stand oil mixed into it. Stand oil keeps the colors vibrant and makes the paint look wet, even if it is dry.
Next, I added a bit of cadmium yellow to the blue mixture along with some titanium white to get the trees covering the bluff. This gives the trees the cool, greenish blue. In this painting, illusion of space is accomplished by using cooler, duller colors on parts that I want to move back visually. This is called atmospheric perspective.
I’ll be posting more as I move along. Please check back!
