"Spring in the Rocks"
                                   9 x 12

Hello again.  This painting is taken from a vacation image.  The original photo had a tree in the bend of the trail and alot more brush in the foreground, but I chose to remove all this when I did my sketch.  I always sketch my scene on paper in either pencil or pen, before I decide to paint it. This gives me the opportunity to shred the scene to just the shapes and items I want.  I'm not classically trained, so trying to recreate nature is difficult for me.  Besides, if I want realistic pictures, I use a camera, not paint.  I paint with an impressionistic feel, "First, fast, impression of whats out there without all the nitty gritty details.", as Tony Couch likes to say.

I painted this on masonite panel, that I covered with two coats of gesso.  i lightly brush the gesso on the last coat in a linen pattern to give the panel a bit of tooth.  My palette was limited for this, as it is for most of my paintings.  I have a warm and cool red, warm and cool yellow, warm and cool blue, raw and burt sienna and white.  These are all I use.  This was painted with water soluable oils.  I have no studio, so this works well for me, as I have no mess chemicals or noxious smells. 

I started by sketching out the scene, adjusting the road and mountains a bit, then put in my darker colors first.  I did a quick 3 x 5 value study and was able to set my values.  I chose a simple foreground, middle ground, back ground pattern, with the foregound being the lightest (save the sky) and brightest.  Once the dark values were in, I started building the painting from the background, forward, to get me where I needed.

I am pretty happy with this one, just need to work on my photography of my art.

Thanks for stopping in.  More to come soon.