Thursday, December 22, 2016

Goats Painting

Next animal painting is about goats. I've intentionally chosen very busy composition. But will focus on edges of those key faces/heads to be standing out. I hope it would work...
16x19.

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Came back to work on again

Wow, I haven't updated this for almost two months. Meanwhile I found the big flaw of the shadow shape and made the biggest shadow part even larger. To see the shapes in it, i make them lighter intentionally at this stage.
I touched water to make it a little choppy since it was actually. I'm still struggling to make the distant mountain and rocks hazier.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

Finalizing the face

Worked on the face a couple of hours. Now I think I'm almost done with the face. I might come back and put the final touches around the left eye, but otherwise I can't improve it any more.
Also I put more colors/paints on frozen grasses. I don't think I would put more effort on the background any more. Instead, I'll knock down the reddish body and make it more bownish. It doesn't balance well with the face colors.
So this would be the last update of this painting before finishing it.

Saturday, October 1, 2016

Blocking in darker part

I haven't updated this for one month but I've been working on slowly. Still blocking in darker shapes but already started showing interesting shapes in the shadow part of the mountains.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Face is not about shapes any more

...but it's about more colors and values. It's about the time I need to commit to each color I mix and boldly put thicker paints with sharp brush work.
That's what I saw American Impressionist Sociery (AIS) show at Howard/Mandville Gallery today.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Putting life into the face

Further putting life into the horse face. Still a little too light value-wise. If I squint a half of the face is supposed to be quite dark. Need further tuning.

Sunday, September 11, 2016

Still adjusting shapes

Still adjusting bigger shapes on the face and lighted part. I haven't come up with a way to show the texture/hairs of the horse yet.

Monday, August 29, 2016

First Glacier NP Painting

I started sketching the first painting out of my recent vacation at Glacier NP, MT. As I updated, I painted this scene on site. The composition is very simple; the lake, a part of the front mountain and the pyramid shaped mountain, then blue sky in the morning. I still get goose bumps every time I watch at the reference photos I took.
Looks like the back mountain needs to be a little bigger but otherwise, this is pretty much the bigger shapes.

Sunday, August 28, 2016

Getting face shape

Trying to get the face shape correct, which is the sole focal point of this painting. I know the values on the horse have to be much darker. But I'll keep pushing values gradually while getting the shapes correct.

Saturday, August 20, 2016

New Horse Painting

Just started this painting this week. It's small, 13x15. I shot the photo on my way back from the spot I painted Snake River in January during my Dayton vacation. I just couldn't forget about the face of the horse lit by the last sun light in a cold afternoon. It as if wanted to tell me something without a word. Hope I can paint its expression on the canvas.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Glacier NP painting

I just came back from my Glacier NP vacation. Due to weather, I missed the first day of panting and this is the only painting I did there while I was busy hiking when weather permit.
This was at Two Medicine yesterday. I didn't even know the name but the Pyramid shaped mountain's color contrasted with the front forest (I couldn't get the forest color right). That's why I picked this composition. It was cut in short (1.5h) due to the boat tour ticket I got for 1PM departure.  So I couldn't get the shadow values right on the front mountain (Mount Sinopah). I'll probably paint this in larger format later. I really liked the composition.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Probably the final update of Fisher Peak, finally...

I'm currently trying to show the sun-lit part on the front left slope but struggling. I also want to light up the front right slope partially. The colors on the rocky trail in the foreground aren't still right. Then I need to knock down the darker values of the clouds, but am afraid I might have to paint all clouds again depending on the color mix I'll come up with. Then I'll finally call it done.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Finalizing values on mountains

Almost finalizing the values on the mountains. I want to push more on right and left edges but probably I should define the values on the foreground first. The key is not to get too much attention to the foreground because the focal point is the mountains in the back.

Sunday, June 26, 2016

Jane Hunt Workshop

This weekend I was attending Jane Hunt's Plein Air WS on Bainbridge Island, as always hosted by Martha Jordan.
On Day1(Sat) we went out to Pritchard Park on the same spot we did with Tim Deibler a couple of years ago. I tried to paint the same tree I think Tim painted and I painted last time, but I couldn't figure out how to handle thick layered trunks and branches then leaves. Tried Jane's technique, using a plastic painting knife for lighted up leaves but didn't work well for stones underneath, then timed out.
Day2 was at flower garden for color study with limited palette. From the beginning the ground for sun-lit and shadowed areas are cooler than they're supposed to be. And, of course, I can't figure out how to paint flowers and leaves well. That's why I gave up flowers as subject for long time ago. Anyway, I managed to get this this level (above right photo).

Jane is quite keen about values. She doesn't use much high chroma colors but the result comes up natural because of that. I don't think I would start using knives but I'll study more about value range 1 to 4 more.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Painting at Potholes Coulee

Last night I stayed at Red Lion in Wenatchee and rode down to Pothoses Coulee area and painted Dusty Lake from above. Shapes are probably ok but colors are not what I intended. Left side bluff is too purplish and the right side is too burnt sienna like. I might try putting burnt umber to the pallet again next time. Darkest dark is always purplish. 

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Eric Jaconson WS - Day 2

Today, I brought the reference photo I took at Skagit river several years ago to the WS, and asked Eric about the composition I should cut out of. The photo includes the embankment of the river and shorter trees on the left side. But if I painted both embankment and the river together, the taller tree (in the image on the left) would come to the center of the frame, which I wanted to avoid.

Eric suggested to use only the river part, which I painted above and also I did on site when I was there. I think that was the same reason I painted that way at that time. Anyhow the rest has come naturally. I think I handled the softer edges better than yesterday.

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Eric Jacobson Workshop - Day 1

Today I went to Bain Bridge Island to join Portland painter Eric Jacobson's workshop, which continues to tomorrow at Winslow Art Center. His style is somewhat similar to Tim Deibler's, even a little less detailed.
But their brush strokes and mark making are not far a part, which I want to get to but almost impossible to accomplish so far.

I tried Palouse Falls from the photo I took from my winter vacation. I could only managed get the drawing and values into acceptable range but not much different from what I've been doing en plein air. I'll try something better tomorrow.

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Keep Improving Middle Range Mountains

Made further value adjustment on mid-range mountains to show the distance but still shadowed by clouds.
Also made the clouds lighter as at the same time.

Monday, May 30, 2016

Dry Falls painting near Coulee City

Over the holiday weekend I went to Eastern WA and stayed one night in Moses Lake. Next morning I rode up to Dry Falls and was looking down from the cliff along SR-17. From the beginning I got frustrated with the colors I was making. They were much more vibrant, especially greens, than the ones on my palette. Besides those edges were not sharp enough to make out islands on the water. Probably I should have connected dark shapes together at the beginning as Jim Lamb taught in the past.

I'll probably make a larger format in the future to study the colors.

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Value Contrast Adjustment

If you compare this image from the last update, you can see what I'm working on. I want to make the sun-lit part stand out while the cloud-covered part darker and less colorful. Clouds are still too dark that need to be lightened more.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

Started considering final colors & values

It's about the stage I have to start considering the final values and colors when I add more paint on to the canvas. I felt the clouds were too dark while the sky&clouds are the lightest values in the composition. Also clouds-shadowed ground need to be darker than Sun-lit part. Then the  front side needs to be darker too.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Chuck Close PRINTS: Process and Collaboration @ Schack Art Center

This Sat afternoon I rode on my motorcycle despite the rain to get to Shack Art Center, Everett to see the exhibit about Chuck Close's printing processes and collaboration with print makers.

It inspired me a lot because it was not about Monroe-born artist's prints but it's about his ever-evolving processes and those printmakers' contributions to his process development. I've learned those processes such as mezzotint, pulp-paper multiplies, reduction linoleum, Japanese-style woodcut, and so on at the exhibit. It included those grids used to create "Phil" with pulp, and woodcuts for his self-portrait.

I spent about an hours to read through the descriptions next to the artifacts on the wall, which is quite unusual for me who wouldn't spend more than 15 min to walk through this size of exhibit. At the end I bought a book about this exhibit wrote by Terrie Sultan at the store.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

I'm back to Fisher Peak

Finally I made up my mind to come back to this painting. Last three months I haven't done anything. But now it's time to get back.

I've been thinking which way I want to go; like Mike Wise putting more contrast between values and colors, or like Norman Lundin using limited palette and not much color variation but subtle value shift to highlight limited areas. I haven't made up my mind, but likely in-between.

So I made the mid to foreground much darker since they're actually shadowed by clouds and also much closer to the viewers. I might want to make those limited sun lit area lighter to create contrast. Probably I need to make shapes clearer in the mid-foregrounds.

Saturday, March 5, 2016

Mitch Albala Wet-in-wet Workshop

Above images are the outcome of today's Mitch Albala's wet-in-wet workshop at Winslow Art Center. These are 9x12 canvas pad and canva paper (I didn't feel much differences once I rubbed the first layer in). Top one is the fist practice putting 4 layers on the surface, progressively make a layer thicker. However, as always I had a problem putting a consistent layer laid out without scraping the bottom later off. It turned out my paint mix was not smooth enough, and I had to add a little more solvent or medium into the mix. That was the biggest finding in today's workshop.

The bottom right is obviously the last practice of the day for a still life. I think the yellow-green leaves are nicely popping up, but as Mitch commented, the window was supposed to be the lightest of this composition, which is not quite. I need to keep trying to create lightest rich colors.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Mike Wise Workshop - Day2

I didn't take a shot of Mike's outcome after the demonstration on top of yesterday's brock-in, partly because he scraped all of them off the panel to show how we could rework on it if we don't like the outcome. That's an extreme demonstration but in reality that's very true.
My outcome is above. Not as good as I want it to be but I experimented some knife works and dry brush techniques I've learned in this WS. It turned out to be ok to me. I need to try further in real paintings. I basically liked the way Mike progressed on the board. I think I can apply some of principles to may paintings.

At least it definitely motivated me to go back to painting.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Mike Wise's Workshop - Day1

The very and most interesting process in Mike Wise's oil painting is above colorful canvas filling is still just block-in stage. You can see even very sharp edges in contrast areas and he keeps pushing&pulling paints on the canvas board. He mixes colors a lot on canvas. Even spray a mixture of mineral spirits, medium, and linseed oil from thin spray can instead of dipping a brush into solvent. This is one way of painting to me.
Then my take to this method is below. We'll finish these tomorrow.

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Snake River painting at Penawawa

I went to an year-end short vacation and stayed at Dayton, WA, for three nights. After I discovered my old ski boots were chipping away piece by piece at the bottom on the second day at The Bluewood Ski Area, I gave up the skiing option and drove out under lower twenties in temp to find sun shine and a little warmth to paint outside on the new year's day, which I luckily found while driving north then east along Snake River. Penawawa Canyon I drove through to get the reiver side was very scenic with some cows grazing around but totally in shadow of southern hills so decided to set my easel along the river.

I should have spend more time to work on the details on the foreground, which should have move value contrast than the background. But the temp started dropping again after I spent 1.5 hours. I think I successfully captured features of great hills in the back as well as a band of low clouds covering entire SW from the spot.