Showing posts with label Williamsburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Williamsburg. Show all posts

Friday, April 03, 2009

Famous Blue Raincoat...


I seem to have a secondary song title theme going on this month. Wednesday night CBC had a Leonard Cohen special on, and it happened to be raining today, so as I was putting on the girls' "raincoats" this morning I decided I should paint one of them with that title in mind! No horse painting binge would be complete without a painting of Gladys, especially as I already have a photo picked for Monster (though of course I reserve the right to change that!).

So, today's painting is a 5 x 7 oil on masonite panel. The panel was toned with Williamsburg Terra Rosa, and I will never do that again! I toned a couple of panels this way so I think I will be either trying to wipe off or at the very least putting a nice layer of something Old Holland on that one! The Terra Rosa has changed consistency since I bought it - a quality control issue I'm not all that impressed with! It took more effort than I like to get coverage - the surface was too slick. Not a good thing with a daily painting! Guess my relationship with OH is not in jeopardy!

The camera never really does these little paintings justice - for one reason, because they're still wet, so the reflection affects the saturation. I was kind of going for the appeal of complimentary colours here - blue, and orange, and they are very rich in this painting.

To tie in the blogging theme...Gladys has some serious growing up in store! She will be bred this year, and we've been working on her to that end. It's hard to imagine Gladys as a mother, but actually I think she'll be okay. And I'm couting on her giving us a baby with a little more flash than we're used to around here!

Please check my Etsy store if you are interested in purchasing this painting. Thank you so much to the purchaser of yesterday's painting! And yes, it is just the painting, not the horse, though he's looking forward to meeting you!

See you tomorrow!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

A Snow Painting, Before the Snow Disappears!


I started a new painting today. With all this snow, I figured I'd better try to get at least one snow painting done before it all disappears! So far I've just blocked things in. This is a very different approach from the Monster WIP - much looser, less restrictive! We'll see how it goes. This one is 11 x 14 oil on Raphael linen panel. I started with a wash of Terra Rosa, which is a new paint I've just added to the mix. It's one of Williamsburg's Italian Earth colours. So far toning this panel is all I've done with it! I find it's very similar to Old Holland's Burnt Sienna. After a very rough indication of tone I went on with this modified underpainting, which has kind of combined the best of both worlds - my usual Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue, then some Burnt Sienna, and the new Unbleached Titanium as well as a bit of the usual Titanium. Can I just call it done and leave it at this? :-)

The Monster painting got some more attention today as well. It won't photograph so well under artificial light, so no pic tonight. It's going to need to sit and dry for a few days now before I move on. In the meantime, I'm still looking for the perfect title!