Wednesday AM - Day 3 - McKinley Workshop

We got to start painting at 9am, with the morning light.  I took a photo of my scene (long shadows and light halos on the willow and brush tops) but by the time I set up, did my value sketch, and did the watercolor underpainting, the sun had rose and the halo look was gone.  Hmmmm.  I forgot what it looked like, forgot what color it was.  My painting came out weaker than I had planned, but I felt I was getting better at the underpainting part of it.  And, this was the first time I tried a square format.

Here is the underpainting:

Here are some basic tips I got for this:  While applying pastel over the underpainting, I need to move incrementally, and occasionally take a paper towel (or piece of pipe foam) and drag one little area of pastel down and over the watercolor - to help the eye move from pastel to watercolor.  It helps with an interesting transition from defined to undefined (fuzzy), or texture to soft watercolor.  This technique also helps to soften dark edges or contrasts at the edge of the painting where they eye would be lead out of the painting (see the dark lower evergreen tree at the right side of the underpainting.

Day Two - Tuesday

I have some catching up to do!  Last night and this morning I could not get connected to the internet.  This cabin is off the grid, but they have a solar-powered dish for internet and TV.  So I better be quick!  Sun is going down and then it will be on battery!

Here is my underpainting and pastel overlays:

What my lesson for the day was:  see the dark green edge (drips) that leave a hard edge above the lower level grass foreground?  You have to glaze over both areas with a like color to soften it. 

Add a zing of bright blue in the dark trees to catch the eye to make it go over there for a moment.

Leave mystery - area where viewer gets to figure it out

Leave the outer edges of the paper more "out of focus" or less textured so the eye isn't attracted to it and off the page...

Put a "ping" in a dark area with a lighter color to suggest light hitting a rock.

Orchestrate:  the paper is an orchestra - certain areas are the (i.e.) first violin, other areas are the support string section...  pump certain areas up, subdue other areas.  I know this is an abstract idea, but, you had to be there...

I was working with shade on my panel and palette, yet I was in the sun.  It looked a little dull to me because my eyes adjusted to the shade.  When I was done he turned it around into the sunlight.  Whoa!  It looked so much brighter and more colorful! 

It was a great day.  There is nothing that comes close to seeing the artist in person go through his/her process.  Books and DVDs are helpful, but I really get more from the real deal.

Bye!

Let's try this again....

Yay, this picture uploaded.  On this field sketch here I have made the corrections and made my dark shapes (the trees) grouped more together instead of fractured the way they were.

Here is the photograph I took for reference later:

And, here are my value sketches:  the top was the first, then, the lower got progressively more defined as I perfected my shapes:

For those of us that finished before 6pm, Richard suggested we try value sketches in a square format.  I did the same scene for comparison.  I'll have to post what I learned about this later!

So much information, so little time to post it all!

See ya later!

Workshop - Day One - Faith Valley

Hello from the Sierras!  We are up here taking a workshop from Richard McKinley.  Our base camp is the cabin in Hope Valley, California, where we started on Monday with a talk and hand-outs and plan of the week.  Then we went out to our first location at Faith Valley (the next alpine valley up the road), where Richard demoed value sketches and then a field study on a small belgium mist kitty wallis piece.  He gave us all a piece of red acetate that we could put behind a view finder or use alone when we determine values. 

The first picture above is Richards completed field study.  Below is the series of mine - first blocking in the value shapes (in the basic color scheme), then we were to smoosh it and push the pastel into the paper with a piece of foam (pipe insulation).

Next step - definining with additiona layers of pastel.  When he came around to mine I got the pointer that I should join my darks into larger, simpler shapes because my little strokes (though consistent and impressionistic) made the darks fragmented.  I did the correction here, but tentatively.  Hope it is enough.

Oops - blogger photo upload stopped loading pictures.  In case I loose this entry, I will post this now, go down to breakfast, and try to do the end of my post then...