A Familiar Subject

My beginner's class started working from a photo source to plan their first painting. I like to choose something that covers all the elements that we have studied so far - sky, graded washes, foliage, and
bare trees. This Bear River farm meets all my criteria and it is one of my favorite subjects. making an interpretation of a subject is always more interesting than slavishly copying a photo and I encouraged my class to make there own interpretation of the subject.

Here are four of the various renderings that I have done over the years.

Sissiboo 1, 13.3 x 21.5 inches

Sissiboo 2, 13.5 x 21.5 inches

Sissiboo 3, 6 x 14 inches

Sissiboo 4, 6.5 x 10.5 inches

Learning from Ron Ranson

Ron Ranson is a noted British painter. My friend Denise Comeau, used this painting as the basis for a lesson in her classes and I am taking a page directly from her book. I intended to do this as a "paint along" lesson for my beginner's class but time did not allow so I just did it as a demonstration. This is the first time this class has watched a painting develop from the first washes to completion. So far we have just done parts of a painting like skys, trees, etc. This is a good example to use because Ranson is a master at rendering to complexity of a landscape in the simplest of forms and techniques.(Click on any of the images to see them in a larger size)

At this stage of my demonstration, I have done everything except the foreground trees. I followed Ranson's techniques and used a hake brush and worked wet in wet to make most of the painting. The left river bank was done after the water was dry but still using the big brush. I have also made some different colour choices than Ranson.

This is my finished copy of Ranson's painting.















After Ron Ranson 10 x 14 in.

Fall Colours

Fall colours have always been a challenging subject  for me so I spent some time with my advanced class working on this.



Here is how I developed this painting:



Thumbnail sketches are how I always start thinking about making a painting. These little drawings help me think about the overall value pattern. The smaller one on the left is about 2 inches square.

The next step is to work out the value pattern in a little more detail. This drawing is about 8 x 12 inches. I have used powdered graphite here because I like how it keeps me from getting too detailed at this point. The value pattern is still the most important consideration here.

The next step is a 5 x 7 inch colour study. I don't always do this step but because the colour itself  is a challenge for me I needed all the preparation I could get. I decided to start with a wash of yellow gold, graded from the bottom to the top of the page and painting around some of the white trunks. The yellow under glaze has really helped to unify the colours so now I am ready to start the painting.

5 x 7 study for Fall Colours











This is as far as I got for the class demonstration. The saved whites have been washed with a light purple. My concern is still to maintain the value pattern

Fall Colours 10 x 14 inches (preliminary stage)

Here is the final painting

Fall Colours 10 x 14 inches