back to painting :)















I've finally been managing to find some time to paint. I don't like artificial light so I really need to paint through the morning and into the early afternoon and then stop. When the weather is grim and grey I hate the light to work in. I do wish I had a south facing studio, I know north facing is traditional but I really don't like it.

I have been working on the 5 seascapes - tall and thin - 48in+ high and 12-14 in wide. Then I decided to work on some more trees.

This is the trees/landscape in progress. It has quite a way to go and this isn't a great photo as it was taken with flash and misses some details, like where I've scratched thin branches through to the underpainting of oranges and drab purples and it's a bit dark.

details:














It's done in oil on canvas over another painting (that I hated!) in oranges and greens and dull purples. I've used the colours to shine through the snow and come through in the bark of the trees. I also scratched through to the underlying colour for the thin twiggy branches of the trees, giving them a glow. This hasn't photographed very well unfortunately.












It now needs to dry so that I can continue. I'm keeping it to a fairly limited colour range but will add more blue/purples to the shadows in the snown and some hints of green into the bark of the trees, a suggestion of life, waiting for Spring.
The distant woods are only scrubbed in and need working on and the composition may be pushed and pulled a bit until I'm happy.

I think the canvas is 20x30 ins

I've got half a dozen 40in square canvasses looking at me reproachfully but I felt the need to get started before bringing them out.

I've just updated to the new blogger - no longer beta so I hope there are no glitches. So far so good and it certainly looks better and quicker to use.

Now I have to go and do some of the endless teaching paperwork :(

Comments

Veedubya said…
Lucious painting, Vivien! Beautiful contrasts and sumptuous surface.

My Sketchbooks are chaotic too. As a left handed person, I also work in toward the middle from front and back! Yikes!

Nice to know you haven't had any glitches with the new blogger. Thanks for your comment on my blog.
8:07 pm
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