Sorry this has taken me so long to put up but I am busy trying to put together a solo show in July at the Touchstone Gallery in Washington DC. Most of my free time is devoted to this project. 
This was my evening demonstration for my figures in the landscape class, and I had a lot of fun with it. I keep the horse and rider the same value as the cows and foreground weeds, which make it read as a large harmonious shape. Try making one shape out of all of your elements and your compositions will really be focused. I used a palette that is dominated by warm sienna colors that are toned down with ultramarine blues and violets. Keep the focus of your painting clear and don’t get too involved with non important things. This is horse riders and cattle.
This demonstration is not new ground for me, I paint this Port Clyde, Maine location often so I am pretty familiar with the elements. It is important that you work with shapes and landscape that you can get familiar with and not just great picture from some travel calendar. Your paintings will look fake and lack character if you are not comfortable with the image. I worked at getting the light on the water and background shoreline since this was my focus. I like the rocks I think they really show the light and support the light on the water. The colors in the painting are pretty straightforward, raw sienna, burnt sienna mixed with cobalt violet and olive green for the rocks. Cobalt blue, cerulean blue for the water with the reflections just a repeat of the distant shoreline colors. Those were mixed greens of new gamboge, aureleon, and ultramarine blue, all toned down with hints of burnt sienna, and violet.
This was a wet in wet demonstration and it really was fun to do, I keep applying overlays of color, yellows, sienna, and green to get the translucent colors. Too bad it wasn’t as successful as I wanted because the white got away from me and I was left with too small of a focal area for the buildings. They are way to cramped and unexciting, but the surrounding areas are pretty successful, this is the nature of demonstrations in 3 hour classes, not enough time if the students get to paint. I teach a lesson and really try to show how it is done but sometimes the ending work is not stellar.
1 Comments on “In The Studio: Thursday’s Demonstrations”
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Hello Esteve. I like your idea to make just a form by using the same value in their colors. I’ll try it. Thank you