Three Sisters Redux - Day 5

It's coming along. Need to decide soon whether to let the texture of the paper show through or whether I should start smoothing things out.

Three Sisters Redux, Day 5 - 5.3 hours

Three Sisters Redux - Day 4

This week I've been distracted by calligraphy.

But at least I managed to get a half an hour done on this today.

Three Sisters Redux, Day 4 - 4.5 hours

Three Sisters Redux - Day 3 (and a quick plein air study)

Here's today's progress:

Three Sisters, Day 3 - 4.0 hours

Only 30 minutes today, but that’s because I went plein air painting! (And did some sketching and whatnot.) Here’s the plein air study:

Three Sisters Redux - Day 2

Another hour on this today. I did some sketching today as well, which was entertaining; and I also did some website/career type stuff.

The image came out too dark again, but ah well.

Three Sisters Redux, Day 2 - 3.5 hours

Three Sisters Redux - Day 1

Giving this subject matter another go, this time in horizontal format. Once again, I'm working large...this subject matter seems to lend itself well to that. This is on a 24 x 36 board, which is probably about four times the size of most of my work.

This is just the underpainting so far. About two and a half hours (including sketches/composition nonsense) today. Taking pictures of this is going to be challenging due to uneven lighting, but there's not too much I can do about it. Well, aside from wait for a sunny day, but it looks like those will be in short supply this week.

Three Sisters Redux, Day 1 - 2.5 hours

Shady Copse – Day 11 (and a quick study)

Here’s today’s progress on Shady Copse, half an hour:

Shady Copse – Day 10, 8.6 hours

And here’s quick 1.5-hour study of a marsh. Working on foliage and whatnot. Also trying to make the sky glow.

Marsh Study – 1.5 hours

Shady Copse - Day 10

Another hour today. Almost there.

Shady Copse, Day 10 - 8.1 hours

Shady Copse - Day 9

0.7 hours today. Trying to simplify a little bit, as well as introduce some variation in that line defining the edge of the field behind the trees.

Shady Copse - Day 9, 7.1 hours

Shady Copse - Day 8

It's getting to that point where I should probably think about stopping; otherwise I'm liable to overwork it like crazy. Another hour today.

I might want to consider cropping it. Not sure yet. I'd either have to take a little bit off the bottom or a lot off the top.

Shady Copse - Day 7

A full hour today. It's coming along.

Shady Copse - Day 6

Another 45 minutes today. Added some more color into the foliage and also started defining this foreground tree a little bit more. Sadly, there were a lot of chores that really needed to get done, so I couldn't stand at my easel and paint all day.

Shady Copse - Day 5

Another half hour. Need to stop trying to do All The Things so I can focus on doing art! But it's hard to give things up, so I keep trying to do it all...

Shady Copse - Day 4

Another half hour today. Still slowly adding green.

Shady Copse - Day 3

Not much time today, but I made the decision to start adding greens.

Shady Copse - Day 1 & 2

Yesterday I did an underpainting with sumi ink:

Then I added yellow ochre pastel on top of the underpainting, and brushed that with rubbing alcohol to produce a toned surface:

And today, I started going over that underpainting with other colors, trying to stay loose:

So far, I haven't yet added any actual green; I'm just playing with color temperature. Not sure whether I'll add green in the future or not. More next week, or perhaps this weekend if I feel particularly ambitious.

Melting Snow - Day 14

Three hours, and although I swore to myself I'd finish this today, I'm still not sure it's done. Of course, at this point I've saturated the tooth of the paper so much that I can't really do much more. Wish I were more skilled at knowing when to stop. Probably should have stopped the other day. But it's no use thinking about that now. Maybe I'll just call it done and start something new. I don't have to make frame-worthy art every time. And I can always crop it!

This photo came out a little on the dark side (probably because it's getting late in the day, and there's less light in my room than usual); those dark blues are not quite so dark in person.

Melting Snow - Day 13

Still more agonizing over work on the water.

Melting Snow - Day 12

Still not done, inching closer.

Melting Snow - Day 11

Alas, I didn't finish it today as planned. But I did make more progress!

Melting Snow - Day 10 (and a random experiment!)

Didn't work on Melting Snow long today. 20 minutes, maybe. Tomorrow's my big day to work on it -- my goal is to finish it tomorrow. I just wanted to make some headway, get back in the swing of things. Gotta remember that even if I totally screw up the foreground, the background is still salvageable!

Another reason why I didn't spend all that much time on this piece today is because I played with the pastel ground I created yesterday!

Yesterday, I dry-mounted a piece of scrap calligraphy "warm-up" paper (it's covered with random letters, phrases, and practice strokes on it) to a piece of foam core with a dry-mount adhesive sheet and a clothes iron. Then I coated the sheet with a layer of transparent matte medium (to prime it), and brushed on a coat of Golden pastel ground on top of that to make a toothy surface that would accept pastels. It cured overnight, and today I decided to play with it.

It was fun! You might, if you look closely, be able to make out phrases from The Lord of the Rings. The script I've been working on is called Carolingian. I've been posting my hand-scribed edition of the book here. Later today or tomorrow I'll post the next two pages...the party has finally begun! Very exciting. Anyway, here's the result of my random carefree experiment: