Intimate Creek

This is the first piece since the workshop with Scott Christensen that I have had an opportunity to play with some of the techniques that I have wanter to try since then.

One of the thing that I was fascinated with was that Scott uses alot of glazes on his studio work. I guess that I assumed since his work is so embedded in Plein Air that he would be fairly set in stone with an Alla Prima approach.

For anyone that may be interested this is some of the methods and approaches I have been playing with. This piece is painted on oil primed canvas (three coats that have been lightly sanded between coats.) A light drizzling of liquin on a limited pallet of premixed colors. I am trying to work away from an intuitive approach to color. This piece three sessions to get it to a state of completion. About three hours the first session two the next and the final session where I glued together the color harmony and ajusted the temperatures of certain areas with glazes about a half an hour. Each session I wetted the entire painting with a sponge brush and liquin. I have found that I do not fight the medium when I pay attention to the method.

Some of the other things that I have been working on is having a strong reserve of color. Trying not to get carried away with color in the beginning stages of the painting but to get the painting to a stage of completion as quick as possible so that I can get a read on the lighting.

This piece was fairly complex as far as getting the lighting right. This little scene was in a canyon in the White Mountains of Arizona. There wasn't any direct light to speak of. Everything was reflected and ambient light. I found that it was pretty easy to lose my way and forget the what type of light I was painting.

24 X 30 oil on canvas, for a larger image, click on picture.