Painting Outside in Gouache and Oils

Plein Air Study: Carson Nature Center, South Platte River Trail

Gouache on Crescent Board

Painting on location regularly again has been good for me both emotionally and artistically. There's nothing like getting out into the natural world to center oneself, and translating what one sees into line, value, and color can't help but result in better art production.

I like painting in gouache and watercolor for its convenience and simplicity, but decided to get back to oils for a change. Headed out to the Highline Canal the other day and saw this scene.

Here's my translation of it.

Decided to use a limited palette since it'd been awhile since I'd painted plein air with oils. Been using Winsor & Newton's Ultramarine, Alizarin, Cad Yellow Light, and Rembrandt's Burnt Umber, and White.

My alley neighbor is an amazing gardener, and has gorgeous hops vines growing over his fence and gate. This study was done on a piece of cardboard (hence the horizontal line texture).

My yard has a big Blue Spruce in the corner. I got locked out of the house the other day. I had my paintbox, but no canvas or cardboard. 

Luckily there was a two-by-four behind the garage, which was a decent enough surface for this study.

I like all media, but there's really something special about oil paints. I hope I can do them justice someday soon.

Thanks for checking out my blog!

The Old Witch, Part Two

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Hello again!
In the previous post I showed the prelims for the border (above is a detail of the stonework at the top)...

 ...but I hadn't shown my source for the border design. So here it is, snagged from a Dover clip art book. It's a lot of fun to let something like this generate fresh imagery!

When the design was all planned and sketched onto multiple layers of bum wad, I placed them onto my light table ( http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/2013/08/quick-and-easy-diy-artists-light-box.html ) for tracing onto a sheet of 140 lb watercolor paper. Cold press is my choice most often. I chose a human femur for her cane, just for the subtle malevolence...

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...and went over the pencil lines with pen, brush, and india ink.

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I limited my palette to five colors--raw umber, burnt sienna, cadmium red, cerulean, and
ultramarine-- basically the primaries (a yellow, two reds, and two blues). Here's a preliminary wash of raw umber and cerulean over the pen work.

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Building up the layers, bit by bit.

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The obligatory and over-used hand-and-brush shot...

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...and a detail of the peeping scribe at the bottom of the border. I love hand lettering! Finding a font, nudging, changing, and embellishing it, and then adding the paint results in a particularly pleasurable feeling.

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Here's the staged shot of the final art with materials and reference props.
The poster--one of a series--will be available in 2015.

Thanks for following up on this--hope you enjoyed the process!