Sunday, December 27, 2015

Value shift problem

Another month past before I came back to this painting. But I haven't given up yet...
After filling more on the right side of mountains, now it's clear that those mountains further behind were too dark compared to the mountains in front of them. I need to push the back ones lighter and the front ones darker.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

I haven't touched this more than a month

I realized I haven't touched this painting more than a month. Although I didn't make much progress I at least did something to improve the edges of the mountains. Until I fill much darker green parts, I wouldn't judge the value of the mountains are too dark or not.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

New Stuart Range Painting

It's unusual for me to work on two landscape paintings at the same time. But I started this based on my field painting last month since I got a potential buyer.
I made the canvas more horizontal (18"x28") than 3:4 that I did on site. Also put a little more sky into the composition to balance with dried up hay field (I think) in the foreground.
I would have to add more accents than the real landscape to make this piece interesting.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Pursuing More Edges

Suddenly it's becoming clearer what I've been pursuing my whole painter career was defining edges. Not values nor color. I'll look at my process again from this aspect and try re-establishing it. Just like the last "Mt. Logan", this painting has a lot of sharp edges due to the subject matter. 

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Defining Mountain Edges

Came back to this piece and started defining edges of the mountains. I'm not sure about the values at this moment and need to wait until fill out the bottom half, just like Mt. Logan. But they wouldn't be darker than the current values.

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Stuart Range from S Cle Elum

Last evening I came over the pass and stayed at Cle Elum then painted Stuart Range viewed from South of S. Cle Elum. Sky, the mountains and the forest hill are almost what I intended. The forground pastures and low trees probably needed more attentions and practices before I can make a master plein air piece. But, overall, I'm quite satisfied.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Last update for this horse

I'm finishing up this piece. Roughly and randamly filled the background. then put more needles on the pine tree. I could have made it much darker as in the reference photo. But decided not to push it further because it's out of focus and I don't want it getting more attentions by viewers.
I'll make the horse's lighted side a little lighter and try enhancing colors on the face before putting my brush down.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Filling more background

while still refining the face of the horse, I started filling more background. Then realized I needed to add more value contrast on the horse sice it's muck closer and focused. At this moment it looks very flat.
I'll try finish this this month.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Glacier Peak Wilderness Hiking

Today I hiked up toward Round Lake from North Fork Sauk River just off of Mt. Loop Hwy near Darrington. I woke up late and made a mistake to cook breadfast at home before taking off. So when I started assending it was already past 11. Besides my legs still had fatigue from jogging yesterday. So I had lunch well below Bigley Gap (elev. 4,400ft) causing that I couldn't reach the gap of Lost Creek Ridge to look down Round Lake before 2:30 when I decided to turn around and start decending.
However, I didn't miss shooting photos of Sloan Peak(above image) and other mountains on the way up. I promised to myself I'd come back again and at least see the lake. It might be next year though.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Started Filling Background

I felt that I need to fill the background to establish the context. otherwise I don't know what part of the horse need to be highlighted, and so on. I knew I can't paint each pine needle, I tried a long handled wide soft brush to put them in. I'm almost sure I need to over paint again to have proper colors behind the needles.

Sunday, September 6, 2015

Another N Cascade Mountain Painting

It's still hard to make out of at this level of sketching, but I just srated another N. Casade painting out of a last year's vacation photo. It's just south view from the same ridge I saw Mount Logan in west. Fisher Peak is in the middle.

This one has more clouds than Mt. Logan so the colors of greens are much darker and muted.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Refining House Head Shapes

After finished Mount Logan, I came back to this horse but felt something is not right on the head shape. I'm still adjusting it.

Sunday, August 16, 2015

Mount Baker Ski Area - on site

I was thinking painting at Nooksack Falls this morning but I realized there is almost no space to set an easel and most of the falls were in shadow in the morning. So instead I kept assending along 542 and passed the base of Mount Baker Ski Area, where Mt. Shuksan is overwhelmingly occupying the scene.
I looked away from Mt. Shuksan and looked toward Mt. Baker's direction (SW) and painted Table Mountain.
Since my onsite paintings tend to be darker, I kept thinking making shadows lighter, which worked for the mountain, but made a mistake and lost value contrast in mid-foreground, which I needed to make shadow much darker.
The bright side was the cloud in the background is almost exactly what I wanted it to be.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

2nd update of the day...and the last of this piece

Although the foreground (right side) is almost untouched quite some time and many areas need to be retouched to complete, I can see how I can finish this pieces now.

When I look back how I got here, the key was the values of the main subject far back. I think that part dectated the entire value coordination of this painting.

I thought I removed purple....but still purple

Well it's much better purple but still kind of purple. But the key now is not the colors but values. I need to make the sun-lit part more shine. To do that the contrast between highlight and shadow need to be more recognizable. I'll push that next.

Monday, August 3, 2015

Refined the valley and the right side

Green shapes, values and colors in the vally area. Also put the close-to-final colors on the ridge on the right side. Before working on the left ridge, I wanted to put more colors and values in the fron right. Now I'm ready to make the purple on the left fade away, which is ruining the entire painting's color contrast.

Also, while I was hiking around yesterday I decided finishing this piece in this month.

Monday, July 27, 2015

One month after, still working on the background mountains...

It's been a month since the last update. Still kept working on the background mountain. I got frustrated since I couldn't show the difference between shadowed areas by the clouds and the other areas.

I'll leave them and move on to mid-ground where the difference should be much clearer. I'll give it a shot there next.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Went back to sky

While working on the trees and brush in the foreground, I felt I needed to decide the values of the other part more clearly. Then some edges of forest lines need to be curved out with light greens with the right values.

So I went back to the sky again and put desired values on the clouds. Darker part is a little too much purplish, which I eventually knock down with more grayish tone but the values are getting close to the final.

Now I need to define the values on the mountains by separating sun lit part from shadow & cloud-cast shadow part.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

New Horse Painting

I actually started this new horse painting a couple of weeks ago. Only drawing though. It's an odd size; 15x17. For this, I felt that 14x16, which I picked for the last  cow painting "#355", would be a little too small then the next step like 16x20 would be too big. So I settled in this size. The overall composition has been roughly done by now. I now can dig into more to the horse body.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Mid section is filled

Middle ground is finally filled. I still want to adjust shapes of the clusters of trees, then will define shapes in foreground.

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Filling out mid range

Before the layers I put on over the last weekend dry up, I adjusted some shapes and values in the mid range valley. Since I'm still not confidence with the shapes in the area, I can't commit with values and colors. I'll work more in the same area.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Tried a different approach

Although I nomally wouldn't get into the details at this early stage of a painting,  I decided to take a different approach since I haven't touched this for almost a month.
First, I took an approach learned at Andy Eccleshall's work shop; work from the furthest toward the near end. Second, I already started working on the details of the background mountains in wet-in-wet approach. But still relatively thinner layers. I'm sure I have to put more layers on the mountains and sky later. But at that time it would be drier so easier to put a layer on top.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Teanaway painting

I stayed at Cle Elum last night and painted along SR-970 in this morning. Unfortunately clouds didn't clear until I stopped painting about noon, so it's missing deepness of colors. But as I've learned in the last workshop, I made the layers of background mountains/hills gradually lighter. I guess I needed more crip colors in the frontground. I think the drawing isn't too bad though. I sketched in the 6x8 sketchbook before start painting because I was almost sure I would be wrong with vertical scale in the composition.
Along the route, I took a lot of pictures of horses at ranches.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Andy Eccleshal Workshop - Day 2

Less impressive but at least I tried clouds. I struggled with the colors of warm yellowish sky part. The original color was more lemon-yellowish, which Andy described "acidic". The snow mountains are a little off in colors.
Soon I gave it up and started the Columbia River Gorge. The browned tree color right next to the front bruff the building is standing on was not what I wanted in color. Andy suggested to make the value closer to the bruff right behind. I might try this again based on my own photo taken a year ago (I think).

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Andy Eccleshall Workshop - day 1

Andy Eccleshall is well-known as an atmospheric painter. I know that's not something I want to be but I thought it might help me how I paint sky and clouds.
There was not much instructions and demo at the beginning but we just started painting layers from the furthest, or bottom, layer and put layers on to it to get closer. I picked up a copy of one of Albert Bierstadt's landscape paintings Andy brought in, and started from the far clounds towards foreground. It was not exactly the process Andy showed us at the beginning. Because I didn't cover the entier canvas at the beginning. But managed to finish this in about 3.5 hours or so.
To me it was not much different how I paint outside. Some differnces were:
- under painting was cobalt blue+payne's grey+tinenium white that you can see on the edges of the canva paper, which was covered by tapes when I was painting. We all pre-primed them at home and brought them in.
- size is 11x14 so a little bigger than I would paint outside (9x12), so took a little longer (regulary 2h).
After finishing this, I started a cloud painting (only clouds and mountains are in composition). I'll finish that tomorrow morning hopefully.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Skagit River Painting

By the way last week end I went to Skagit Valley to paint. It was a little cloudy in Sunday morning when I painted. So the colors are less interesting and the river water reflected clouds and whity. But the biggest disappointment was I couldn't paint fast flow of water in this painting.

Overdone the background

That happenes. I know I've overdone the background . I need to push it back more greenish and darker again. The shadow area too.
I'll also put my finishing touches on the cow to have more contrast. Then I'd be done with this cow.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

"Mout Logan"

One of popular angles of Mount Logan (9,087 ft) over Fisher Creek Basin. I took this photo last summer when I hiked Easy Pass Trail in North Cascades NP. It was one of the most breath taking vistas in my life and I was so determined I would paint the scene although I couldn't paint on site. The trail was too hard to carry painting stuff over for me.

Still adjusting the drawing to be accurate before tackling with colours. Already showing the great composition. I feel it would become the greatest of the year. Or complete disaster.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

I decided to stop soon.

I'm still enhancing the front ground but I'm mainly making most of the part lighter except some shadows I wanted to show up.
Then I'll touch a little more here and there where it looks too ugly. But I don't think I can make this painting much better even if I keep working on. It's about the time to stop.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Finally adjusted the colors of cliffs

I knew this from the beginning. It's quite obvious that the darkest part of this painting is obviously the vertical cliffs in the shadows. However there are three colors of the darks in this composition due to the distances from where I was standing. The further it goes, the lighter and bluer it becomes. I finally put it in place. They're still wet and reflect lamp light so not so clear in this photo, but they're there.
Now I really need to define the colors and values of front ground. Then I would call it done.

Saturday, April 11, 2015

wet on wet

I wanted to push the colors further on this cow. So I inevitably tried wet on wet. Although the shadow part is still lighter than I wanted, I can see it's getting there. I might just need to push the lightest part lighter, just like its face.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

still working on mid range rocks and around

After taking this photo for today's progress, I realized the white brush on the left was actually slightly greenish instead of red-purplish. This is the pit hole you would fall in when you're painting from a photo. The values aren't too bad though.

At this moment adjusting values is my main focus.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Shapes are ok now

The shapes are almost ok now. Now I have to decide colors and values in shadowed area. It's not so easy. And I know very well it would define this painting. Because I decided this composition based on those shadow shapes.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Making values lighter


As I came to be aware of my paintings tend to be on darker side value-wise. So I started lightening the values from the sky then the top of the hill tnen plateaus, downward.
At the same time, I'm making each layer of paint thicker gradually.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Working on clouds

Although I haven't updated for this landscape for a while, I've actually been working on the clouds a little bit for last a couple of weeks. Since I don't have much experiences painting these types of clouds, I'm experimenting what would work for me or my paintings. I'm hoping to find some good brush strokes that appeal to my satisfaction. A long way to go though.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Getting right propotion

Still trying to get the right proportion of the figure, especially the head&nose compared to the body. Once I get that, I'll dig into the values of the body colors.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

New Animal Painting

It's been more than a month since last time I updated. It was a tough month Feb for me including unexpectedly long stay in Japan and now already March.

Anyway, I started a new cow painting. This time I painted with black acrylic paint on the side and all ends of painting surface. I might not paint over to the very edges but I might change my mind. Will see.

I decided putting value contrast in this early stage to get a sense of the cow shape. Just like figure paintings, I can get shapes correct relatively easily in this way. The size is 14x16.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Bringing up values on the main subject

To make this painting more interesting I started bringing up values on the horse lighter with more contrast with darker areas. Now it started showing "completeness" feeling, means getting closer to the finish line.
This would be the final update of this painting.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Filled background slope, but...

After refining the other horse shapes, I filled the background slope with more colors. It looks flat now. I have to come up with something although the area is unfocused. Also I need to put more light on the main subjects.

Don't like the colors I got

First part of this weekend I worked on this. I tried to enhance the colors and values, but ended up unwanted colors. I'll keep trying the table rocks.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Struggle with Shadow

Believe it or not I had been struggling with the shadow shape. Since it's not real horse shapes that human can observe from any angle it kept eluding from my grasp. It affected the disfigure of legs connected to it. But I think I finally got it.

Also refined the legs to be anatomically correct. I'll next to refine the dark horse behind next.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Testing Values

While adjusting leg shapes of the horse, I felt the entire painting was too dark to define the edges. So started trying lighter, or maybe the lightest, values on the foreground. The background hill side was a little too light. I need to push it down a little bit in addition that the color needs to be more red purplish.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Taking Shapes

Shapes are getting in place gradually. Now I need to put more contrast between shadow and light while majority of areas are much lighter because strong midday sun was hitting the ground. It shouldn't be this colourful because of that.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Happy new year painting 2015

As expected, the shapes of table rockes are not too easy to define. Still trial and error stage. Meanwhile I also putting some colors in surrounding environment like sky and foreground. Still values and colors are far off, but I needed to put something in to define the whole context.