Salt Marsh #1
End of Day 1 session
End of Day 1 session
I managed to get back in the studio last night after about a week long break doing murals. I love my studio. I love working on a new piece.
Last night I decided to work on a new piece that I hope gets accepted into a juried show that opens in May. The theme of the show is the NC landscape. I culled through many photos that I have taken while traveling around North Carolina over the years (from the Blue Ridge Parkway, to Charlotte, to the Raleigh skyline, Neuse River and the beautiful NC coast). I ended up selecting two photos to use as my reference for this painting. One photo of the salt marshes and one of some great looking clouds (taken in Raleigh). I determined that I could combine these two images to make one interesting and hopefully striking image.
Once I had a concept for the painting, I set out to determine the support or canvas I was going to paint this on. I have recently been painting some smaller images (9x12 or 11x14), but I really felt like this image needed a larger canvas. So, I chose the 24x30 gallery wrapped canvas as my support for this painting. The next idea I had was to use the canvas in 'portrait' vs. 'landscape' mode. I am hoping that this gives me a lot of room to make a dynamic sky and an interesting foreground. I also decided to put a texture of gesso on the canvas to make the painting a little more interesting (I hope it works!)
Then it was time to draw the image. I took my time, really focusing on getting some depth to the image, even at this early stage. I used some transparent cyan, phthalo blue and alizarin crimson mixed as my drawing color. Once the drawing was complete, I set out to block in the major colors - the sky and the green masses of the grass. After that, I blocked in the reflected sky in the water and the cloud shadows and highlights.
That is where I left it at midnight last night. I will get back in the studio tonight in hopes that I can move this painting closer to the finish line. The date of submission for the art show is April 12th, so I have a little time to get this just right.
So, what do you think? Do you like where this is headed?
Thanks for reading - Adam
Last night I decided to work on a new piece that I hope gets accepted into a juried show that opens in May. The theme of the show is the NC landscape. I culled through many photos that I have taken while traveling around North Carolina over the years (from the Blue Ridge Parkway, to Charlotte, to the Raleigh skyline, Neuse River and the beautiful NC coast). I ended up selecting two photos to use as my reference for this painting. One photo of the salt marshes and one of some great looking clouds (taken in Raleigh). I determined that I could combine these two images to make one interesting and hopefully striking image.
Once I had a concept for the painting, I set out to determine the support or canvas I was going to paint this on. I have recently been painting some smaller images (9x12 or 11x14), but I really felt like this image needed a larger canvas. So, I chose the 24x30 gallery wrapped canvas as my support for this painting. The next idea I had was to use the canvas in 'portrait' vs. 'landscape' mode. I am hoping that this gives me a lot of room to make a dynamic sky and an interesting foreground. I also decided to put a texture of gesso on the canvas to make the painting a little more interesting (I hope it works!)
Then it was time to draw the image. I took my time, really focusing on getting some depth to the image, even at this early stage. I used some transparent cyan, phthalo blue and alizarin crimson mixed as my drawing color. Once the drawing was complete, I set out to block in the major colors - the sky and the green masses of the grass. After that, I blocked in the reflected sky in the water and the cloud shadows and highlights.
That is where I left it at midnight last night. I will get back in the studio tonight in hopes that I can move this painting closer to the finish line. The date of submission for the art show is April 12th, so I have a little time to get this just right.
So, what do you think? Do you like where this is headed?
Thanks for reading - Adam
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