The Japanese Lantern, 20″ x 16″, UART 320

Watercolor underpainting

Painting partially completed

I decided to do another painting, given how much fun I’m having!  And indeed, I spent several lovely days working on this one, including one where it was snowing beautifully outside my windows.  I’ve let this one sit for a little while to see if i’m really done and have decided that I probably am.  But, of course, it’s not framed!

This is a house in Garret Park, MD that I’ve filmed several times in the fall.  The trim on the house is a wonderful turquoisy blue and there is a dogwood, plus a Japanese maple in front of it (which I omitted).  This gives me the perfect combination of blue green with cool reds–one of my favorites.  The photo was a horizontal that I cropped down to focus on the light in the doorway, which is set off so beautifully by the dark background and diagonal of light.

I started this having woken up one morning thinking aboud “center of interest” paintings and wanting to do something that was looser.  I initially thought about another leaf painting, but then saw this one, taken very recently. Given the strength of the center of interest, I thought maybe this would work and I decided to do a watercolor underpainting.  I was aiming for loose-ness–but….

I began with a drawing of just the house.  Then I worked over that with the watercolor.  I worked flat and kept it pretty defined. I have a really hard time with watercolor!  Can never seem to get the right colors.  But I wanted to limit it to warm reddish browns and blues.  So I did my best.  In the image, you’ll see that I began doing the painting before I realized that I hadn’t filmed it.  So, the only really loose part is the upper right corner, where I added some pastel, but left the watercolor showing. In the photo there is a large green tree there, which I knew I didn’t want.

The Japanese maple was in front of the porch on left and I decided that it was too confusing and that keeping just the dogwood branches would work better.  The foreground was brown and I assume it was a mixture of mulch and leaves.  I was really happy to have this color, rather than green grass.

I used primarily Giraults and Ludwigs for this painting, no Blue Earth.  The various turquoises came from my box of 30 Ludwig turquoises and I used the reds in my “brilliants” set for the leaves.  I was happy with the watercolor underpainting and I tried to layer the turquoise lightly, so as to let some of the warm color come through–this is best in the lower part of the building at left.

For the white stucco walls I used a combination of warm and cool Giraults, beginning with a little darker brown.

The complicated part was the railings and what was behind them.  There was a red couch of some sort on the right and I loved the way that worked, bringing the red over to the right side of the painting.

The branches and leaves were all added after I painted in the house.  I wasn’t sure how much to add. The upper branches in the photo had no leaves at all, but I needed to have some.  I used more below where the leaves are hiding the porch behind it.  (This is where the maple was so it was quite confusing).

I’m pretty happy with this but any suggestions will be gratefully received.

I forgot to mention the title.  I saw this immediately as being a “Japanese” designed light fixture but I have no idea!  It might be just kind of Arts and Crafts.  But this was the title that came to me and I decided to stick with it.

Rock Creek Gold, 20″ x 16″, UART320

Underpainting, stage 1

Underpainting, stage 2

Initial lay in of color over underpainting

Final before reassessment

I’ve just finished a painting from my visit to Rock Creek Park near Pierce’s mill when the leaves were at their peak.  I knew I wanted to do this one and originally thought I’d do it larger. But the boards didn’t come and I have a lot of 16 x 20s so went with that.  I started with a simple drawing of the basic shapes, then laid in colors of violets and browns.  I loved the underpainting before I used the alcohol and I thought about spraying it with fixative rather than melting it.  But I think the alcoholed underpainting was more useful. However, I’m thinking more about using the fixative now that I’m in my home studio and can step out to the patio to spray.

This was a really complicated painting!  There are two layers to the bank and then there is a “skirt” of floating leaves in light and shadow. On the far bank there are rocks catching the sunlight.  There is a mass of orange and yellow leaves and some sky poking through.  I wanted this to be about the reflections and the yellowest of the leaves but I got lost in the light!  I thought I was done with the painting yesterday but knew I wasn’t completely happy with it.  The little rocks seemed a distraction and I wasn’t sure the light made any sense.

I sent the painting (“final before assessment”) to my fall students for their evaluation.  I got some good comments and suggestions from them and thought about it overnight and this morning knew what to do.  First, I addressed the comment that the yellow leaves were leading the eye off the picture plane.  So I added veritcal leaves that lead back to the left.  Then I decided that if the light is coming from the back around the corner, that the lower left of the bank has to be pretty dark.  So I got rid of most of the light, leaving just a few pieces that worked with the light on the floating leaves.  Then I dulled down the rocks.  I also added more color and texture to the floating leaves to try to make it more obvious what they are.

One of the problems with the photo was that the big tree on left had no leaves over it. Looking at another photo, I realized that its base is at the lower left of the bank.  However, I had moved it back and realized that I could cover it with some leaves, which really helped to keep it from being too dominant.

Colorwise, this picture is all warm oranges, yellows and yellow greens with violets and turquoise in the sky.  My first layers were all Girault.  Then I used my “lemon” and “orange” boxes of Blue Earth pastels to develop the leaves and the reflections.  I used some finger blending in the water to push the pastel into the paper and make sure it’s texture was completely different from what is above.

So I’m pretty happy with this!  I’m not sure if I’ll do more painting before Christmas so I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy Hanukkah and a Merry Christmas–knowing that we’ll be celebrating more quietly than usual.