Arbutus Tree, Wallace Island

I took some wonderful shots of arbutus trees while cruising the Gulf Islands, B.C. this year on holiday.  This one was a lot of fun to paint.  I love all this brilliant color!  This piece is 24 x 30 inches in oil.  Please contact me for price if interested in purchasing.

New Studies

These two paintings are the result of using a large brush and some walnut oil to thin the paint and painting rather loosely and fast.  I think they turned out ok.  The 12 x 12 took around 1hr and the larger 16 x 20 inch took around 2 hrs.  This was a great exercise in painting only the values and no details and this should help me when I go outdoors in the spring to paint.

12 x 12 inch oil

16 x 20 inch oil

Progress of an oil painting in 3 steps

I thought I might post the steps to arrive at a finished oil painting for those of you who may be interested.

#1. The underpainting is usually done in acrylic and is basically just a map to show where the darks and lights will go. This could change as the painting progresses.
#2. The first layer of oil paint. This layers brings in the color palette that will be used. The paint is very thin at this point, mostly with paint thinner and a bit of liquin. This will help the painting dry quickly so that I can continue on the next day usually.
#3. The finished painting. I usually let it sit for a few days to dry and then will go back in and do a few details and some touch-ups. I really have to be careful not to overwork the painting (really easy to do) or it will loose the freshness that I am going for.

SOLD

So that's it in a nutshell! This painting is 24 x 30 inches and is painted mainly from my imagination and some photo of marshes and estuaries.

24 x 30 inch oil The Estuary

This painting is based loosely on some photos of the Cowichan Estuary that I have plus a bit of imagination and the color study that I did previously.  I really like the warm colors and wanted to do a large painting using reds and oranges.

Abstracted River 8 x 10 inch oil

I really like the color combination in this one and have plans to do a larger studio piece in the future.  I love using these 8 x 10 inch panels for studies because they are a manageable size for finishing in one sitting yet they can also stand alone as a piece of art in a nice frame or part of a grouping of similar sizes.

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The Mud Flats

16 x 20 inch oil The Mud Flats
$540 Available on Dailypaintworks.com

Day 3 Work in Progress 24 x 36 inch oil

I am making a little more progress on this today.  I color blocked in the shadows on the snow and the snow itself.  I also added a bit more modelling on the birches trying to give a bit more texture.  I love the color palette for this one.  I made the soft mauve color by mixing part white, burnt sienna and dioxapine purple.  The color is more on the warm side due to the burnt sienna and i am liking it a lot.  I think I will let this dry a bit before working some more on the snow and shadows.  I also painted the sides of the canvas with the left-over paint mixture I had on my palette.  This is a good way to use up the paint if you like to clean your palette after every session.  I always start with a clean palette but I do have a plastic tupperware container with dividers in it that i keep my colors laid out in.  I put this into a small fridge I keep in my studio so that the paint stays fairly fresh until the next time I use it.