Category: Uncategorized

No painting today. Glued four pieces of Belgium Linen to 3/8″ masonite panels, two 11″ x 14″s and two 8″ x 10″s. I want to take four 8″ x 10″ panels and four 11″ x 14″ panels on my trip to the Bighorns this summer.

Did more work on what I’m creatively calling Still Life #2. I regret using a pen to draw the grid. It isn’t easy to cover the grid with one coat of paint so this is a base layer.

Started the backgrounds of two still life paintings.

Today I didn’t paint. Instead I constructed two wet oil panel storage boxes, one for 8″ x 10” panels and one for 11″ x 14″ panels which are standard frame sizes. Each box will hold 4 panels. Oil paint takes at the minimum days to dry so you need somewhere to put them, especially on the road. You can buy these boxes but they are expensive and only one or two sizes are available. For a couple of decades I’ve thought of buying a French Easel which is for Plein Air Painting (painting outside).

The easel was 40% off so I snatched it up. It’s a popular brand.

Beginning June 1st I’ll be camping in the Bighorn Mountains for 100 days. There’s no shortage of subject matter for paintings, especially on the west side of the mountains.

Started the backgrounds

This is the way it goes. Mix the paints I’ll use on my glass palette and transfer the paints to the old school beechwood palette that can be held while painting. I laminated the photo so I can mix a color I need then actually paint a very small spot on the laminated photo to see if I got it close enough. I also have a “color checker” that a friend made for me a while ago. You mix the paint and put a little bit on the tip of the color checker. Then “aim” the color checker at the color on the photo you are trying to duplicate and see if the color on the tip of the color checker matches the color on the photo.

Painted the thin strip of distant hills and slopped some paint on the middle and foreground to block it in a little bit. It isn’t easy, at least for me, to get everything in the right location.

We all know about Linear Perspective, things getting smaller as they become more distant. There is also Atmospheric Perspective. As things become more distant, colors become duller and fainter, and things become fuzzier.

This morning I finished my copy of a William Wendt landscape and my first still life. The still life was finished. I just rubbed it out with a little refined linseed oil. Oil paintings can “sink” and look dried out, some areas more than others. Rubbing the painting with a few drops of linseed oil repairs the sunk areas. Months after a painting is finished it can be varnished.

Before rubbing with oil

After rubbing with oil

This is just a start. Next I’ll rough in the canyon. After the sky and roughed in canyon are dry, about a week, I’ll rework the sky and then begin more detailed work on the canyon. While it’s drying I can start on my other paintings. I’m not sure yet how accurate and detailed I want the canyon. It’s a real pleasure painting on this Belgium Linen.

Finally received the final photo and finished transferring the photo drawings to the linen panels. Tomorrow I can start on the new paintings and finish the two old paintings.