A drawing for a painting

Here is a 24 by 36 I started yesterday. The light was watery today, as we had high cirrus clouds. I didn't want top spoil one of my existing paintings by returning to it in anything other than full light, I started a new painting.

This is another tactic I sometimes use, particularly on larger pictures. I spent the entire first day working transparently (no white). Using a brush and pulling back my whites with a rag, I worked out the entire painting. I have tried to get as much pattern into this thing as I could. It looks a little like Chinese brush painting at this point. Scott Moore with whom I am traveling says the Chinese look is coming from the cheapo oil primed linen made by the Chi-Coms.

The beauty of working in a single color all day is that I have separated the problem of color from those of design and drawing. I like to really get my little iron teeth into the drawing before I start worrying about color and handling. It might seem a slow way to go about things, but I make the time back later, and the subsequent coloring up of the painting goes quickly. I have chased down the gremlins that would have been waiting for me with a less fastidious approach and the painting should proceed without any (or few) nasty surprises.

I did this drawing in cobalt violet. That's a good color to have at the root of my shadows, but I could have used burnt sienna or ultramarine. I would never want to do this with a cadmium red or any other color that I would have to fight later at the bottom of my shadow notes.

Above is my trusty Lincoln Continental with it's Live Free or Die plate ( # Stape) parked on the road up the Chisos mountains.

Notes from the desert

I guess I can tell you where I am, so many have guessed. I am in Big Bend National Park in West, Texas. Big Bend is America's least visited national park. It is very wild. The temperatures here are running about 96 during the day. It is also a little smokey here as there are big brush fires burning in West Texas and Northern Mexico.

Although I have been joking about the snakes and javelina's I am actually very comfortable in this environment, as I have painted here before. It is a little like painting on the moon, the landscape is very jagged and fierce. I think Big Bend is one of the best places to paint, but you have to be willing to camp out to do it. There is actually a motel in the park, but it is always full.

Here is another picture I am working on, there is no under painting this time. I am using the "big poster shapes method". Great stretches of this one are only indicated by a tone at this point. I will take it out again and probably finish it tomorrow. This is an 18 by 24.

I am on a strict schedule here. I am working on a morning painting, this one, and an afternoon painting, the 24 by 30 I showed you before. It is not possible to work on a painting all day, as the light "flips over" at about noon and the light is exactly the opposite of that with which you started the painting. So I have several pictures going in rotation. I plan to work two days on each 18 by 24, and three on each 24 by 30. Sometimes I get an 18 by 24 out in one shot and I almost always can do a 16 by 20 one shot. I would rather go back on a painting several times as I am much faster outside, than in the studio.

I intend to ratchet up my schedule tomorrow and work three sessions a day. I want to have three going in rotation. I need to get a lot of work done for a gallery here in Texas. As I don't do much work from photos so I have to make the most of the time I am here. I can count on good light every day out here is desert land though and I am in production workaholic mode. There are no distractions here (other than the blog!) so I am free to just jam out the paintings. I already have about a half dozen, counting those I made in the hill country near Llano, Texas. Great little town that, loved it!
See you all tomorrow.

Casa Grande, day 2

Here are the next several images of the current picture in development.

Below I have worked up a darker sky and invented some clouds as there were none and the painting looked a little empty in the sky. The darker ultramarine and white sky makes the mountain stand out and gives me enough contrast to get the thing to light up.

I continued to work on the entire painting, trying to advance it as a whole rather than finishing one area ahead of the others, an approach called herding sheep, here is a post on that idea.
The darkest darks in this photo are a little overstated, I was unable to correct them without compromising something else in the painting.
I drove through a range fire the other day, one side of the road was on fire, the smoke went hundreds of feet in the air. I had the air conditioning on and I could still fell the heat through the closed windows. Now I am sequestered in an undisclosed location stocked with havelinas, snakes and tarantulas. I am hoping not to see a mountain lion. I have been sleeping in a tent, enduring searing heat (getting in touch with my inner lizard) and getting great drying times.
I have limited access to the net, but I hope I can post again tomorrow.

Just a quick post today! But I am able to get to an internet hotspot and again, I am operational.
I am going to do a step by step of a painting I am working on. The scenery is really big here and I am doing my best to compress it onto a 24 by 30. You can see that I have started out with a sketch on the canvas in burnt sienna. I shoved it around for over half the session trying to get it designed. I care more about the design than anything that follows. If I get the design right I get a good painting. If I don't, no matter of detail or finish will make the thing work.

"YOU CANNOT OBSERVE DESIGN INTO A PAINTING!

Ultimately I pushed the right hand crag over to the right as I felt the painting balanced better with it over there. I want the mountain on the left to read as the subject and "loom" over the rest of the landscape. I have not touched the white at all. As soon as I do that I "lock down" the painting and can no longer easily shove it around. I am using a little violet (transparently) in my shadows to make those clearer.

Here is the start of my lay in. I pushed the sky a little to the right over in that upper right hand corner to refine the shape of the Casa Grande mountain. Then the light failed. I will work on another picture for the morning session, and then late this afternoon I will take this one out again. I am not a plein air painter by many peoples definition, but then neither was Monet. I often work repeated sessions on a painting.

IF YOU ONLY PAINT "THE DAY" ALL YOU WILL GET IS METEOROLOGY.

I will return tomorrow with the next stage of this painting ( if I don't get snake bit!)