Objective here was to learn how to paint stones on the bottom.
Bottom one is my interpretation of what instructor explained. Something extra I decided to do to practice the skill and remember logic.
Each one is A4/Letter size.
Oil on canvas sheet.
love both paintings.. the bottom one is particularly effective.. no doubt the stones are underwater.. I really like your study pieces very inspiring for me .. Thank you for sharing
@rah - thank you for the new name for me! His watercolors are impressive as well as oils. Original that was used as explanatory piece by instructor was made by Frank Serrano. I checked his website yesterday and was blown away.
Yes, indeed, I wanted to be loose, but i guess this size does not allow much of the looseness. As soon I took liner for the upper painting it was such a temptation to go through all the planes with it, I knew immediately I have to control myself and stop as soon as practically possible without ruining distance with details. .
@DavdF - Thank you David for visiting and commenting, I am glad I achieved that underwater look! Next i need to catch myself to work on variety of shapes. All my stones look identical potatoes. Funny thing I realized after I was done.
Painting #6 is going to be a real challenge. I did underpainting yesterday and will continue next Saturday (hopefully). Your works inspire me too David, I cannot comprehend how you do your values, you have a wonderful eye for values control. Have you tried something in a bit non-classical way but lets say some usual landscape, but with unusual colors (purples, pinks, blues, oranges, etc) but not in the place where they supposed to be in nature? Like something from outer space planet habited with life forms where the sky is magenta pink during the day?
Hi ya sunny lady.. I don't see potatoes at all .. I think that bloke jerry Parnell or maybe Kevin ?? both avoided symmetry by randomly spoldging the dark tone on the canvas for rocks and then looking for rocks in the mess ! that helps avoids any symmetry but I think yours are good.. Stupidly I don't know what you mean by value control .. is that like the colour combination .. I just paint what I am looking at or imagine it would be.. I have never tried a outer space scene .. I hadn't thought about it but always willing to try anything .. hope you are well .. enjoy your painting .. will let you know when I have painted ET or Star Wars !!! :) ..
@David : Couple of links to videos from YouTube.
https://youtu.be/tOGDmamxQwE
https://youtu.be/ax130yILbw0
https://youtu.be/iVJAJTk2uNI
Thank you sunny lady .. I have watched them all.. I feel much better informed now so thank you.. so not colour at all then !!! .. I don't really think about it like that .. I guess .. not sure how I think about it .. but I do get the significance of it .. Thank you for sharing .. always learning !!
Just grayscale image to see values interesting ! Thanks again
Sunnylady, you are certainly achieving your objective in learning to paint rocks in a stream, both partially submerged and wholly under the rippling surface; and within the context of a natural setting in the rest of the painting. Well done.
@DavidF - I guess you have "awesome value-meter" built in your eyes together with "color-meter". :) you don't need to struggle about this at all and this is great. Everyone sees differently the same thing/color and this is a part of being humans with all our varieties.
@DaveJ - thank you Dave, I am glad it worked!
Love the aesthetics! Feels magical to me. I imagine there might be more shadows in the highlights of the rocks in a next round; the highlights themselves feel unfinished which may be contributing to a consistent looks? Regardless, wonderful work as always Sunnylady :)
@fantastic.productions - I redid highlights on the bottom painting few times and never got happy.
Could not figure out where they must be located and everything I tried did not work. So lastly I left it with what I felt was the best effort. Sadly I don’t have enough watching experience for such stones to learn from nature
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The values and tones are convincing and there is no doubt the stones are underwater. There is also great depth created by your choice and control of values too. The paintings, although just exercises, I would consider as finished pieces. The remind me a little of the style of Winslow Homer. Enough detail so objects are discernible but not too much. Lovely work.