Tag: Tanglewood

Another Tale of 3 Paintings: Tanglewood

Yesterday was Painting Disaster Day. I suppose it had to happen after a couple of good rounds. It was also nearly 100F, and even with the air conditioning on, I was hot and cranky, and that doesn’t make for good focus. Anyway!
I took this photo last month, and rather like its moodiness. The dead leaves and bright new leaves create interesting colors while the trunks create interesting lines. The first attempt to reproduce this painting in some form or another began with pastels, then gouache, and finally watercolor.
This pastel painting is rather clumsy, but I have found in doing these kinds of series that usually the first one, in whatever medium I am using, is always the starting point. I learn more about the picture as I paint it. 9×12 on Mi Teintes paper.This is the second in the series – a small 6×8. What I did differently here than my usual gouache is I used Arches hot pressed paper and worked to keep my gouache paints thin (cream consistency) and moist while I painted. The smooth paper and smoother paints made painting a lot easier. It turned out pretty good!
Finally the watercolor. This is on the reverse side of another painting, on 16×20 Arches cold press watercolor paper. As both pastels and gouache allow for opaque overpainting of other colors, by this time I had a pretty good idea where light and dark were and could plan ahead. I used frisket on the tree trunks and in areas where the leaves are hit by the sun. Keeping these areas masked off let me apply broad washes across the paper without losing the shites.

Altogether, I am pleased with this series. I think I may redo the pastel painting as I have some new pastels to try out! Meanwhile, I am looking for some buildings for my next triad (or “try-at”) of paintings.

Tanglewood (Watercolor)

Here is the third painting in the series of three different media, this in watercolor.

For this painting, I used a piece of 16×20 Arches cold-pressed paper.  I laid down some frisket to keep the paper white for sunspots of leaves and the edges of the trees.  From there, multiple initial light washes to establish areas of color (ie sky, leaves, leaf mould, trunks) and from there just sort of let it happen until I was ready to remove the fisket.  Once that was done, greens and darks, and finally the rigger brush for tree branches.

Each painting has it good points and bad points.  Watercolor is the least forgiving of the three, but here I think I did a pretty good job as I do get a sense of the flickering light through the new leaves, and that really was the main point.  This painting and the gouache are my favorites of the three.

It will be interesting to perhaps try the pastel again as I ordered a set of 25 greens and just took possession of a Terry Ludwig Darks 2 set the other day.  The greens are Mount Vision and will arrive Friday.  The pastel was the first in the series, and now that I am comfortable with the values of the painting(s) more, a 4th try and a 2nd pastel may prove to be a good exercise!

Tanglewood (Gouache)

The second painting in my series of three, in three different media.  Today this is in gouache.  My previous post showed the photo from which these paintings are derived, as well as the pastel which I did the other day.

To date, I think this is one of the better paintings in gouache I have done.  Two differences here:  1)  I used hot pressed Arches paper rather than cold pressed.  2)  I made sure I kept my paints moist by spritzing them, and covering them with saran wrap between painting sessions – keeping the paints moist made the job of painting much easier.

Smoother paper (hot pressed) allowed the paint to move more easily on the paper.  Keeping the paint moist added to that experience.   I really put effort into keeping the paint about the consistency of cream and spritzed the paints when they stopped looking glossy.  The only area I rather wonder about is the right middle ground – I may want to redo that a bit.

 

Tanglewood (Pastels)

Another series of three to emerge from this Land of Pandemica, where house arrest prevails and imagination runs wild!

I took this picture about a month ago, just as the shelter-in-mandate order came down from on high.  I really like this picture because of its moodiness and the brightness of the leaves.  It looks pretty mysterious, but in reality that is an effect of the editing.  Still, I like it enough to give it an attempt for a number of reasons!  There is a rhythm in the trees and their curves.  The leaves on the ground lie fairly horizontally, while the green leaves are vertical.  All these conspire to challenge me . . . So, without further ado, below is the first attempt, in pastels as today is dedicated to pastels!

As you can see, I moved the leaves from vertical to a bit more diagonal.  I also added some “stuff” to the lower left corner as the original photo was pretty dark and lacking in detail.  The floor of last year’s leaves are more orange than beige.  I tried to pay attention to my marks – the stroke of the pastel stick – as well as to doing some negative painting to help the lighter areas stand out.

I am a fairly pleased with this painting.  Pastels are more forgiving than either gouache or watercolor – especially watercolor! – and because of this, I can think about contrast and structure a bit as I go along.  It may make the final one (watercolor) easier to do after the next one, which will be in gouache.