A little progress on the cows

Worked on the front cows and grass around them. Now the overall of color and value contrast is showing on canvas. Not bad. I guess I need to make the brown cow a little darker next.

Block-in Process

First I started this process with cool dark blueish purple. But changed my mind and painted over with warm redish purple. The reason being: the icy part is much cooler. To balance with the coolness dark part needed to be warmer. Otherwise the entire painting would become cool-cool. The outcome looks like wookcut printing, which is cool!

Photo from the workshop

The host of the last workshop, Cary Jurriaans, emailed us a bunch of photos from Day 3. This was the moment Cary teased me about the reflection of the lamp and I rushed to turn it off :)
Please note that the two paintings on the wall are Jim's landscapes. Even though this is a small photo, you might be able to recognize the difference in quality between his and my painting.

New Landscape "Icy Falls"

 I started drawing on 18"x28" canvas with grids on it. You might not be able to see the grid in this photo though. I first drew a horizontal and vertical line to separate the surface to four quadrants. Then drew two diagonal lines in each quadrant. This idea, of course, came from Jim's workshop. I knew drawing is very important for this wide format with complicated shaps/lines.

Color-wise, this would be relatively mono-tone since most of the part are in shadow in early cold morning at Shoshone Falls. I might do some more for the falls from my last vacation trip. But that's would depend on how this piece goes.

Jim Lamb Workshop is over

I came back from the workshop on Whidbey Island this evening. This particular workshop was quite fruitful and got a lot of ideas how to proceed with my painting career. Great thanks to Jim for the useful and insightful advises. I can see easily that I would be painting based on the principles I've learned through the workshop in very near future.

Below is a photo for the outcome of Day 2 and Day 3. I finished one piece every day. They are 12"x9" and 11"x14" respectively. What Jim repeatedly instructed me was to connect shadow shapes at the beginning of painting and keep it until the end. It works! Then push them further toward warmer side or cooler side as needed. As the result, even each shape in either painting may not so realistic, the overall of the painting has captured the atmosphere of the subjects, which appeals to viewers.

Jim Lamb Workshop - Day1

Since Friday, I've been attending Jim Lamb Workshop at Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio now. Yesterday was the Day 1.  Day 1 is always difficult at any workshops. Because I need to understand what the instructor is intending to convey through his/her first demonstration and to follow the guideline I got then to put it on the canvas. This is 9"x12", which is very small compared to the format I regularly paint on. Even though it's inside of the studio, I've been feeling like I'm doing plein air. Jim advised me a couple of times, starting from the composition of this painting, color/value contrast between the bright yellow green and dark front ground, then values on the background.  He fixed many part of this painting. Especially the advise how to treat the background tree area was quite useful.