When you have an underpainting and are too anxious.

Having had to leave for an appointment I came in and was having so much fun with my cloud, I really felt the need to make that sky very flat. The nupastels I use were not hacking it. Because I used the Medium, I decided to try another experiment and took some sanitizing alcohol (the hotshots use denatured stuff, but I am not a hotshot and it makes it look all watercolory, which is EXACTLY what I want it to look like!



These are a real pain to photograph because the early light on the sketch was perfect. As the afternoon wore on, the skylight got darker so I turned on a lamp. LOTS of color wackiness. I will try to balance the pictures, even if they are not really true representations of the painting....

After tackling the sky, I decided the foreground plants were not right either. My limited palette was discouraging, so I just added some pure viridian watercolor to juice up the bushes.


Remember I am not a landscape painter, so this is going to go on instinct for a while and when I have what I call "covered" which is something I do in oil as well (I give myself permission to live with it a while and the rest will be tweaking. Sometimes it turns out to be done, but I reserve the signing for a while.)I will hit it with some workable fixative and let it darken a bit. I am having most fun playing with the multiple colors and their value properties. The simplest combinations can make radical changes... and the photography is really going to be hard to show it... ah well, back into the dust!
dj*

The Progress Shot

I wanted not to scare off the participants, so I did a couple more hours work on the demo. It is being refined for color and relationships. The photo may be updated when I re-photograph it in daylight, but for now, one can see it does actually not end up being abstract expressionistic, and can be refined quite nicely into recognizable realism:

dj*

Short Demo for Prescott Class

It was a beautiful day and apart from having the flames of a dry brush fire chase me up to Prescott Arizona, I had a great demonstration to promote my workshop on June 18, 19 and 20 at the Mountain Arts Guild, 228 North Alarcon in Prescott, Arizona.

Because I wanted to be sure to see the progress of the technique, which I have shown you here, I brought a couple of pieces to demonstrate.

This first one was underpainted and begun but put aside to work on during the main demo as the painting dried.


The main demo was a drawing only when I came in but I showed some of my work and explained the simple reasons that I used the colors and why... and then demonstrated that the more important part was instinct and artistic eye.

While the watercolors dried, I worked on the prepped piece and got to this point.


The real excitement of this process is how the negative shape reveals the larger elements.

When dry, this piece which began as a charcoal sketch, was fleshed out and left like this:


I hope the standing room audience found the speed and freedom of this technique something they can use in all of their work, not just pastels.

The workshop will involve a bit of demo on how to use a computer to help visualize improbable colors to use under your subjects, in order to produce vibrancy and energy. I tried to stress that the most important thing in my workshop is having a sense of where you are aiming the painting before you begin and a willingness to do it wrong.

I understand someone once asked Edison how it felt to be the man who figured out how to bring light to the world. He said he was more proud of the over 600 ways he learned NOT to!

Please, contact me or http://mountainartistsguild.org and click the workshops link on the header for all the information to come out and spend a nice long weekend in the hills of Arizona.

Early Notice, I am giving a class.

For the locals (or for anyone interested in hiring me anywhere) here is a preview of my class.

I will be doing a three day workshop covering the same subject in Prescott AZ next May, but you will hear more of that! Click to see it bigger....