Ta da!!! Finally, a solution that makes sense.

The problem:
Too cool overall. I lost that wonderful orange color that made this piece interesting at an earlier stage. Contrast is what makes a painting interesting—contrast of size, color, shape, texture, value, or temperature. The missing ingredient was temperature and color contrast!

The solution:
So I decided to take a small chance and add a very bright orange, sunlit sky. My light source is from the right (see the tree shadows). So I made up a time of day scenario that was different from what I initially intended. Instead of late afternoon, I decided on light from moments before sunset. That meant not only creating the lush orange sky, but decreasing the intensity of the foreground by pushing down the chroma on the river banks.

So now, rather than the viewer focusing on the foreground, the first point of interest is is in the far distance. The eye travels away toward the back of the picture plane. Or in other words, the focus is the top of the painting and the illusion of distance. The viewer feels more as if they are shooting over the tops of the trees to the distant bluffs at the horizon, reinforcing my title.

Whew! Now I can relax… There is nothing worse to me than a paining left unresolved (failed). Thank you for taking the time to go through these lessons with me. I hope you learned as much as I did!

Problem of the trees on Center Island being out of proportion has been solved. I increased the height of the trees at the banks of the river to match better the island.

I am very happy with the way the trees reflect against the dark shadow. I used a very dull green painted directly over the blue of the water. Then I simply added a bit of lighter value green to give the illusion of highlights from the tree leaves. This is somewhat new territory for me. The only other painting I have done with reflection in water is “Landscape #2.”

At this point I should have been done with this painting. But after leaving it in the studio overnight I came back and was dissatisfied. Something was wrong. The painting overall lacked dynamism. It felt wet and dead and cold. Leaving it over the weekend didn’t help. When I came back to the studio it still wasn’t ‘working.’

So back in I went to add a higher chroma green in the foreground. My thinking was that there wasn’t enough contrast overall. And I went further, adding bright highlights to the foreground trees. But still it was a failure in my mind.

Find out how I solved the problem in the last lesson!

Perspective is coming together now. I’m liking how the trees coming together pretty well.

The burnt sienna wash is screaming through the complementary green in a way that is very pleasing. Problem is, the plan I have includes covering most of the sienna with opaque greens. We shall see how well this works out. I nearly want to leave it as is.

There is a drawing problem that is driving me a bit batty. The center island has trees that appear much taller than they should be relative to all the others. I missed that until now. Grrrr. What to do. Come back again to find out!

The dark shadow value of the blue is in place and now it’s on the the trees.

Starting at the back (top) I work my way forward with very muddy green colors with a light value, creating atmospheric perspective. I got a little impatient and decided to rough in some of the green of the foreground river banks. I have all this paint on the palette mixed in order to get to the background greens. So I decided to use them because they were kind of close to what I am after.

I’m really happy with the pattern of the river in the foreground. I’m always amazed when something comes up “correct” the first time around. Usually it takes a lot of reworking to arrive at the perfect solution. Well, at least I think it’s a perfect solution now. As the painting progresses things will probably change. Every stroke has an effect on every other stroke. It’s a fine balance that is easily destroyed. In other words, just because I like something in the painting doesn’t mean it will survive to make the final cut. Each color and shape and value has to play well with it’s neighbors.

Tune in again to find out what happens!

The underpainting is serving me well as a map at this stage. I’m painting the trees a mixture of ultramarine, white and a bit of raw umber to give it a more organic flavor, which will become the shadows behind the trees once they are completed. Remember, in this piece I am working from dark shadows under the trees and later will add the lighter values on top. Also just blocked in a neutral green for the open areas along the banks.

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!