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8×10, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Multimedia Artboard
Please contact http://RiverWindsGallery.com if interested in this painting.
This was painted on location from Cold Spring, New York, along the shore of the Hudson River. Crow’s Nest Mountain is actually 42 feet higher than neighboring Storm King, but doesn’t get as much of the publicity. The moon was setting over the cliffs, presenting an irresistible scene. I thought I’d show a demo of my process, so I took some photos along the way.
I started by mixed up a painting “medium” of Golden Acrylic Flow Release in a ratio of 1:10 with water, poured some of that into a little palette cup, and added about 25% Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (Gloss). I used that to dilute paint for my underpainting, so as not to underbind the paint, and to help the flow of the color.
I began drawing in a couple of lines with heavily diluted Transparent Red Oxide. Once the placement lines were in, I started blocking in darks with thicker paint, and used thinner washes on the midtones. Then I used Transparent Yellow Oxide over the light areas (except for the sky). Areas of this photo appear blue due to sky reflection; those areas are actually white.
Next, I pulled out some Ultramarine blue, and used that combined with the transparent yellow and red oxides to block in cool darks and start a green wash on the foreground. Adding Titanium white and just a dash of phthalo blue to the ultramarine, I blocked in the sky and some sky holes in the tree.
Below is a photo of the painting on my easel, with the scene in the background, so you can see what I was working on. Compositionally, I’d have needed a wider canvas to fit in these elements if I wanted to keep everything to scale. Instead, I compressed the scene, shortening the width of the mountain, and bringing the moon over and down toward the peak. (You can just barely see the moon in the photo of the scene, in the upper right corner.)
I added Hansa Yellow Opaque and Napthol Red to my palette, and started working on the local color. I wanted to bring out the warm tones in the cliffs, so started putting in the pinks and violets early on. The red underpainting helped with that, as well as giving that orangy fall atmosphere. Here it is at the “almost done” point:
Lastly, I added cooler colors to the cliff face and did a once-over throughout the painting, adding finishing touches and making adjustments.
I hope you enjoyed the demo and plein air painting with me!
Currently In Gallery, Demos/Work in Progress, Golden OPEN Acrylic Paintings, Hudson River Paintings, Landscape | No Comments »
