Meraki Mustangs - The Creative Process

Meraki Mustangs

I talked in the previous blog about how this painting made the most use of new odorless oil products. As I have painted with larger and larger canvases I have more frequently encountered the problem of watercolors drying to fast. To counter this I have used a mixing medium that slows the drying process. But it also changes how the watercolor behaves. I used that medium for both the sky and the under coating of the foreground in this 22 x 46 inch canvas.

I like the effect liquid watercolors give me especially poured and also how fast a large segment of canvas can be covered.

Sky and foreground poured and mountains and sun completed with watercolor

With the use of salt (varying grain size) and soap and metallic powders floated on a very wet surface a variety of effects and textures can be achieved very quickly. I have been using oil sticks in the foreground of several paintings to enhance textures already begun by dropping paint and salt.

Painting the horse in with watercolor

In past horse pictures I have painted the manes in first but I already knew I wanted to use oil sticks brushed in for the manes. I wanted a more wild look. But at this point I became rather dissatisfied with my horses done in watercolor so the watercolor became an undercoating for the oil I will apply with brush.

Oiled in horses if you will

Oil sticked foreground and oil painted middle ground under horses

Using the oil on the horses and then darkening the ground under and behind them made the horses stand out from the watercolored background. And the use of oil stick on top of the textured watercolor and salt foreground created distance. From this point in the opening picture was a lot of tweaking. Mainly of colors of the horses so they did not over power each other. I also roughed up their legs to give them more a sense of movement. In the picture above I had signed it but not added my signature ravens in yet. There was a bit more tweaking to do.

Became a fan of Binford-Bell Studio and see postings of future work in process.

Spider Rock Triptych

Spider Rock Triptych

I did it again. Another triptych. Somehow they remind me of the exercises assigned when I was getting my fine art's degree. And to have all the information I need in case I have to do a theme paper on it I recorded the steps and, in this case, missteps.

Ready to transfer drawing

The drawing in and of itself isn't easy. Landscapes must be rearranged so that each piece is a painting in its own right but all three go together to form one. First mistake here was the base of Spider Rock. The curve made for problems.

The poured sky

I liked the sky but clearly it was going to be night and it was a moon and not a sun. But heck if I can move mountains and canyon walls why can't I move sun and moon?

Original color scheme

And I may do one in these colors in the future with a cloud dotted summer sky. But it was just not working with the sky or the base of Spider Rock. See the little piece of the base that juts into the right panel? That had to be changed clearly and the brown. One of the advantages of water media on watercolor canvas is that it is more forgiving but this triptych was going to challenge just how forgiving. You can actually lift some colors off. I decided to go with a setting sun ergo the canyon itself should be dark.

Cliff faces and bottom of canyon put in shadow

And I lifted off most of the brown on the bottom of Spider Roch but it didn't solve my hump into the right panel. The purple and blue washes over the yellow of the canyon in the background, however did set the Spider Rock off as the main focus of the piece. I think it looks like two regal women standing tall.

Toned down walls

Rather embarrassed to mention how long the triptych stayed at this point while I debated the color of the foreground. Not all the creating in a painting has to do with brushes.

Thin white washes added to far canyon to give distance

And I corrected that annoying base of spider rock. Details added to punch up the front. Lines on Spider Rock make them look more like women gazing at the moon but not obviously so. Wanted to keep the mystery. It is only my spiral stars missing at this point and some refinement of the stars and a touch up of the cliff dwelling hiding in the walls in the center panel.

This was definitely a learning experience.

Skies - in th beginning they were all blue

A sampling of skies

Haven't written a blog on the creative process lately so figured I was over due. And since yesterday I was working on some new 12 x 12 panels for the up coming Rio Grande Arts and Crafts Holiday Festival my mind was on skies. I begin with skies. This is in part because my skies are mainly poured or floated using the liquid watercolor I prefer. And it is partly because the sky sets the tone for the painting. And because while the scenery in New Mexico and the Colorado Plateau is awesome the skies are without parallel.

When I first began painting back in college I stuck with blue skies and they were a bit of an after thought. Frankly skies scared me because many a great painting (in my mind) was ruined by my treatment (or non-treatment) of the sky, as I saw it as merely a backdrop for the subject of the painting. Pouring skies was more than a technique change. It led me to a totally different approach to the entire painting.

Beginnings

 Of the four church panel paintings above the top two are going to be night scenes and the churches will have luminarias lining the path to the doors, and large rising full moons. The metallic glitter was another happy accident in my attempt to capture skies filled with stars. The bottom left is a sky I have done before and like for "hot desert days." The bottom right is a new sky. I am trying this one out. It is prompted in part by the top picture in the opening photograph, and in part by a photograph of Laguna Mission with a very stormy sky behind it.

My Tres Cruces triptych was an adventure in skies that worked. And difficult because it was on three separate canvases but had to look like one sky going from dawn to sunset to dusk. You may have noticed my skies are no longer blue.

Tres Cruces Triptych

Sometimes my adventures in poured skies work and sometimes they don't. I blogged previously about the struggle I had getting to that top pink sky with clouds. It really was an accident. Lots of my skies begin as accidents and then liking the effect I seek to repeat it. I have tried for sunset and gotten dawn as in the first time I did a yellow sky. Starry night skies are thankfully very repeatable as they are very popular. But while it is "repeatable" they are seldom exactly alike. Water and liquid watercolors have minds of their own even if I can urge them in different directions from time to time.

The skies make each painting unique, even when I repeat a subject, because they dictate the time of day, the light on the subject, and, most importantly, set the mood of the painting. Ergo they are seldom just blue. It always works better if I follow the sky rather than try to force the painting to a preconceived idea. Mind you I do have an idea of where I want a painting to go, it is just that sometimes the paint wins and those can be very happy adventures.