Demo: Oil Painting - Studio Painting Based on a Plein Air Sketch

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Initial Color Wash.

As you can tell from my minimal sketch on the previous page, I am more interested in masses and gesture than in the precision of lines. Here, I have used paint considerably thinned with Turpenoid to solidify some of the ideas. Colors used include: Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue and my favorite "cheat, " Sap Green. First, I put in my darks:

I continued with the water and the land mass in the distance (Grand Manan Island). I've also blocked in the lights -- the green grass and weeds, and the sky, which I toned a very light red-orange.

Refining the Darks, Noting the Lightest Light.

Anytime you wash in your underpainting, you will lose parts of the drawing you made in the first step. It's important, especially with rocks, to refine that drawing. Here, I've made sure to strengthen the diagonal cracks in the foreground rocks. I've also made a "note" of where the lightest lights will go -- the rails of the lookout deck. (By the way, I used well-worn natural bristle flats throughout the entire painting process. I stuck with my #10s for most of the painting, stepping down to #8s and #6s for the finish.)

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