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.

_DSC1922

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

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