Sunday, September 28, 2008

Round Valley

I've been playing with pastels for a while and was feeling like I just might forget how to mix my own colors so I blew the dust off of the oil paints on a recent trip to the Sierras.

_MG_0074 - Version 2

This was done one evening just north of Bishop, Ca. in an area called Round Valley. I'm already a sucker for trees and green fields but when you put the Sierras behind them... I'm hooked!

Since I remembered to take a few photos while I was doing this, I decided to present this in a demo format:

1) After the initial drawing I filled in the major objects with transparent washes of Red Oxide, Ultramarine Blue and Viridian Green. This helped to establish the overall values.

_DSC1920

2) Next I painted in the darks and filled in the major shapes with a representation of the local color.

_DSC1921

3) Here I've filled in some more color, added a few edges and filled out the shape of the main tree.

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4) Now I'm starting to refine some edges and details.

_DSC1925

5) Final version. I've worked on the shapes, tweaked some colors and, finally, dropped in some of the four legged critters that were sharing the valley with me.

 _MG_0074 - Version 2
12 x16 oil on linen panel

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery

I took a fishing trip, recently, to the Eastern Sierras with my son before he headed off to college. Just fishing, no painting. But I did get some photos to paint from later.

This is from one of those pictures I took when we visited the Mt. Whitney Fish Hatchery, south of Bishop, CA. It's a unique place with an old stone building and a large pond in front where they keep a number of huge breeder trout.

Beautifully landscaped, I got a lot of photos and you should be seeing several more paintings of this spot in the near future.

 _RSI0725
12 x 12  pastel on sanded paper

Detail Close up
_RSI0725_C