Last night I was the guest demonstrator for the Corona Art Association, in the town just west of where I live. A very nice group of artists came out for the evening, and many I hadn't seen in a while (Mary!). I painted this 16 x 12 acrylic during the demonstration, starting with a toned canvas panel on my new Easyl. I used a burnt orange color to get rid of that white surface, choosing a warm color to offset the dominant cool colors to come. The design was drawn without reference from memories of snow scenes I've seen in the past. Although I didn't take "in process" steps as a lesson series for you, I will do my best to explain how it came to this point.
First, I used the cool pill box colors entirely for 98% of the image. I laid in the large darks where the pines and spruce trees were to go, and also using that mix of burnt umber and ultramarine blue, the water area.
Then the rest of the canvas was covered with varying shades of the three ever-useful sky colors: Ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson and yellow ochre, lightened with titanium.
Controlling the opacity of the mixes was important, so that underpainting shows through as the layers became lighter. I wanted that translucency of frozen water to convince the viewer of the layers of snow.
After the break (the Corona Art Association is to be commended for the great hospitality--I didn't need dinner!) I came back and "finally" opened the warm box, where I used cadmium orange tinting the titanium white for the final sunny areas. Holding off the accent areas until the final colors are put in helps keep the rest of the painting interesting. Then those highlights become the "plink" to finish it off.
Many artists put too much importance too soon on that "plink". Far better to have a really good painting, and then add that "plink".
On the home front, we came back from Chicago with "Onslow!" Puppy breath and happy wiggles... Here he is with our old German Pinscher. He's about 6" tall. She's 16".
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