Jul 24 - Wolves for the Twilight DVD

Amazing how harmonious the Color System can be when it is so easy to use for twilight and overcast day paintings! This second DVD painting is further along than I planned for photographing it, but it just caught me up and carried me. (Not to mention that the camera was somewhere else in the house--sigh.) What we have here is the first full coverage of the canvas, laying in the initial abstract structure of values done ENTIRELY with just four colors plus white.

Which four colors? I bet Boot Camp Workshop graduates can tell me with their eyes closed. But for those of you not fortunate enough (yet?) to be in a "CBC", I'll share. The workhorses in this painting are:
Ultramarine Blue
Burnt Umber
Alizarin or Quinacridone Magenta
Thalo Green
and (drumroll.....)
Titanium White
Mixing them together gets all those wonderful gray greens, gray blues and violets. Wowza.

I already like the design, although it has changed from the photo reference. Improved, I think. Now I'll go back into it and lay in "the rest of the story" with the cameras running. I even promised ON FILM that I would do a "Best of the Best" DVD of the combined footage for advanced students of the Color System--sort of a categorized visual lesson on tips and tricks for making the most of the CS from the hours and hours of footage from ALL the prior DVDs, even those no longer in production. I know the Color System works, and works WELL for all artists.

Speaking of cameras somewhere else in the house, I thought you might enjoy seeing the front of Two Trees Studio in summer. The hills are brown now, however the palo verde tree on the left is blooming, the roses in the picket-fenced bed are doing their thing, and the new siding (last year) really sets off the colors. My studio, and where I sit typing this right now, is inside that lower left window by the green vines. Do you see me waving at you? I love gardening, and just love this space!

Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.
You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.

Jul 22 - The Twilight Painting Begins (for the DVD)

Artists are sensitive. We react, because to do less would mean we are less than full artists. I know this from the spiral of feelings associated with recent events, and it took the helping of another artist to see it in myself. I really wouldn't want it any other way, though. Would you?

I offer the stages of the newest painting for the upcoming DVD for your pleasure this week. Here's the first pass--the toning of the canvas and the initial sketch for this twilight scene of wolves in snow. This is a 16 x 20 linen canvas, and I'm painting it in acrylics for those of you wanting to perhaps explore this medium, or already use it. The Color System crosses all media, and this DVD will do that, too!

The initial layer to get rid of the white is a composite of primary yellow (a neutral, pure yellow) and burnt quinacradone orange (going warm). I painted the initial sketch with raw umber. NONE of these colors are in the Color System, and ALL will be completely hidden with the upcoming layers, so I use these "leftover" pigments to do these early stages. When I am thinking about it, I do tend to put a warm layer under my final pigments because the contrast of temperatures helps me make decisions about what percentage of the Cool Box I use. And most of my paintings (with the dominant subject being landscapes anyway) tend to be over 70 percent Cool Box. This one will be even more--perhaps as much as 98%!

We have to use our logical mind in creating paintings--the rules and structure of design are the foundation of creating good art, and those who ignore those (or never learned!) struggle so much in this endeavor. And it ought to be fun and relatively easy. I talk about design constantly in my lessons, because it is such an integral part of the creative process. On that note, do you see the location of the wolves? Ha! I mention that in the film.

On other notes, the Cooper's hawk is now free--moving from the smaller cage as he became stronger to the covered dog run. There he gained strength and more coordination (and ate more chicken!). His mom came down to the pine tree behind the pen, calling to him, so I opened the door. A squabble of a reunion, and they both flew off to the sycamore in the canyon below the house. I've heard them since then, and saw one of them sitting near the chicken pen yesterday. Sigh. Save a hawk, maybe lose a few more chickens. So it goes! I didn't get any pictures of the hawks together or the dog pen days, so here's mom looking over her boy earlier in the week. They truly are magnificent.

As ever, thanks for reading this far.

You can see my entire blog HERE.
My workshop schedule for 2010 is HERE.
Color System information can be found HERE.
If you need to email me directly, please click here.