Monday, September 30, 2013

Still can't finished covering the canvas

I spent more than an hour on this but have covered only about 2/3 of the entire canvas. The main reason is I keep misplacing bigger shapes and need to adjust them gradually. Although the highlighted part of tree greens are quite perfectly spotted. I think because I referenced with other bigger shapes below them.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Shapes, shapes, and still shapes...

I know this is just my second bird painting after "Seagulls". But I'm still struggling with the bird shape. Maybe because of their aerodynamic shape is difficult to be captured. Or maybe I'm just not experienced enough, unlike Tony Angell (maybe too big to compare with, ha-ha).
Anyhow, I'll keep pushing it until I get something that gives me some degree of satisfaction.   

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Large (relatively) painting for Crescent Bay

I started a large (26x32) painting for Crescent Bay where I painted on site near it earlier this month (opposite side of salt creek campground). This is the view toward west. I kind of know I need to use cobalt blue at the end for the color of ocean, which I haven't used for years. But at this moment, I'm just trying to place bigger shapes on the large canvas after putting on purple under painting and very vague drawing. It would take some time to just cover the entire canvas with base colors & shapes.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Low Tide 2

After I did basic drawing, I painted background as well as all sides with light water blue. Since I painted top&bottom sides, I need to leave it at least a couple days before I can set it on an easel.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

I think "Low Tide" was wrong...

Tonight after I came back from a group artwalk with friends in Seattle, I finished Rosario Beach. Then looked at Low Tide again.
Suddenly I realized I picked a wrong composition.
The reason being: Look at Summer Breeze I recently finished. It's a great result not because it's painted on a small panel but because it focuses closely to the main subject I wanted to paint. Then look at Low Tide now. It's very difficult because the size of the geese/main subject is very small compared to the canvas size. It wouldn't be a geese painting but a ocean painting.

That's wrong!

I'm now re-cropping the original photo to make the geese bigger on canvas at the same time making the canvas size to 16x16, which is 2" wider vertically. I don't have time tonight to start a new Low Tide. But I'll start making new 16x16 stretched canvas tomorrow night.

Sorry for no photo tonight.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Finishing up Rosario Beach

Although I'm still not satisfied with ripples and reflecting sun, then need to finish up front rock, they wouldn't take too long and I should be able to finish this within a couple of days.
This was especially difficult to decide values obviously. The far part of ocean is, I think, still too dark. But if I touch that part, I need to adjust all the other part relative to that part. Probably it's too risky at this late stage.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

About to be done with this piece

For background, there needs to be a little more value pushing/pulling (mainly pushing) then some adjustment on the horse is also needed. But otherwise, this is almost done. I started this last Saturday so I would say one week project. Not bad.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Quickly getting to the final for the shapes

Once I got main shapes corrected, it didn't take long to get to this stage of the main subject. I'll go back to the background before coming back to the final colors and brush strokes on the horse. After all this is just 12x12.

Monday, September 9, 2013

As always, shapes aren't quite right

As always the case, although I was quite confident with my pencil drawing, I soon came to realize the major shapes weren't quite right and had to re-draw as I filled with more value variations. I'm still adjusting the body shapes as well as the face shapes.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

This was not planned but...

Since PLG will have "Around the Block" show next month, I suddenly decided making a quick horse painting on a cradled pre-primed 12x12 panel, which I got at Dan Smith today for about $6. The dead line is Oct.6 but I would need to finish at least a week ahead to let the paint dry. So I sketched with a pencil in detail and put the darkest colors without underpainting. The horse is whitish so the white surface would actually become good reference. I would need to fill with background green soon.

Monday, September 2, 2013

I ended up like this...

Although I still need to adjust colors on dark part of water, this is how I ended up. This is the situation impressionists would use fat short strokes and let the primary colors get mixed through viewer's eyes. Instead I used a smaller brush (#5) with mid-length strokes, which created more realistic outcome. I guess I unconsciously intended it. Since at least values are much closer to the final, I'll go back to the rocks again to match value-wise.

Time to start defining the biggest mass

Although I'm still working on the shapes on the fore-ground rock, it's time I need to fill up the water and ripples to define the values of the painting as a whole. Otherwise, I can't determine the values of rock shapes and lighter part on them, as well as the colors/temperatures.