Tim Deibler Workshop - Day 2 & 3

The photos above are the outcome of the rest of the workshop this weekend. The red rock painting was from Day1's 1.5h session. Other two on the left are from Day2 plein air, which was mostly failures. Then the right one is from Day3 in the art center. What I've learned were quite similar, if not the same, to ones I keep hearing from other workshops in the past:
1. Don't use white straight from the tube
2. Define the value relationship in the scene (lightest, darkest, mid values) then lay them down on the canvas first.
3. find color temperature relationship, warm and cool, in the scene and keep the relative relationship when you mix&put colors on.

These are the basics from the workshop. But also I was making the same mistakes again and again, like evenly divided distances between the same shapes like trees and the same size of similar shapes like rocks, etc. I'll re-consider the size of canvas for my plein air again. Down to 9"x12". And maybe put a cut gessoed canvas (9x12) on a board (10x13), which would probably save money for me for stretcher bars. Those are all practices anyway. Not for sale. And more importantly they would be easier to carry in bulk even when they're wet.

Day 1 paintings

These are the outcomes from the first two 1 hour painting sessions. Top one is from a BW photo, and the bottom one is from a color version.

Tim Deibler Workshop - Demo night

Today was the Day 1 of Tim Deibler [http://timdeibler.fineaw.com/] workshop at Winslow Art Center on Bainbridge Island. Then he provided a 2.5h demo to public tonight with this 30"x40" canvas. The photo was taken at a break after 1.5h mark. I haven't seen any demos with this big size of canvas before. He's really quick painter with quick wiggling strokes. After finishing the first block in with thinner paints, he stopped using paint thinner other than when he really needed to clean his brush. He painted this with almost only one brush (#8 flat Utrecht 209 series?).

Day time, we did 2 one hour paintings (I used 9"x12" canvas pads) and 1.5h painting. I'll take photos of them tomorrow evening and post. Basically summarizing values of the subject down to three ranges: lightest, darkest, and mid value. Then blocking them in with proper value relationship between large shapes, which I keep hearing from Mitch Albala, Jim Lamb, and so on. I started using more and more paints lately and I realized I need to take bigger tubes of basic colors tomorrow. This is a good sign of improvement on my skills and techniques.

Getting closer and closer...

As always the case, finally, really finally, it's getting closer to what I wanted in the front ground. The colors of the river is done as well as the left river banks. Now I need to refine colors of the right side. The trees are good enough by now. What kind of earth color combination I could make and how are the keys now.

Refining front ground slopes

I spent a couple hours yesterday, then a couple more hours this morning, a couple more in the afternoon, then more in the evening on this piece. Refined the shapes and tried different temperatures on the front ground slopes. That part is getting better finally. I need to adjust values and shapes on the background snow mountains next.
It's not going as fast as I want, but getting better for sure. Have to be patient.

Came back to the horse

Tonight I came back to this horse and added some layers in the background. This part is supposed to be monotone and values aren't quite there yet but the shapes aren't too bad at the same time.  I need to keep refining.
Since I couldn't finish any pieces last month I have to finish two pieces this month. That's why I came back to this while still struggling with Kootenay Sky.

Started Committing

After coming back from Choochokam Arts Festival, where I saw some good painters' demonstrations like Jim Lamb, Ned Mueller, Barbara Barry, etc., I finally started committing on this painting. I mixed some batches of mountain and snow colors and laid them down with thicker applications.