Skinners in the Fall

This is a painting I started in March. This was done over the past 2 months a little bit at time after dropping two earlier attempts. This is the eddy pool above Skinner’s Falls on the Upper Delaware River painted in a relatively limited palette. Late in the day the sun reflects off the trees on the New York side of the river. A phenomenon that happens all year ‘round.

This is nearly finished. I have to wait a while for the colors to sink. Then I’ll ‘oil the painting out’ to see if anything needs adjusting.

Eddy in Fall 16 x 24 0il on linen panel ‘22

A portrait swap!

This is a painting of Josh Bills. Part of a portrait swap we are doing on my artist forum. OpenStudio. Learning to Paint Realism with Oils

Josh Bill oil on linen panel 18 x 12 2018

There are 4 pairs of painters. Each painting the other from photographs provided. There are to objectives in this challenge. First assuring that a good photograph is provided and understood. Second objective is managing value and color focusing on spectral color.

I added to my personal challenge by selecting Geneva Paint as my palette. Geneva is a more liquid self leveling paint with a slow drying formula, I started by mixing my 12 color pallet from Ultramarine Blue, Cad Yellow and Pyrrole Rubine. Then mixing set of tertiary semi-neutrals.

The painting got it’s start as a half size touch painting on paper. I worked out rough color, value and likeness. I tried to get a handle on the Geneva and groused a lot. The color is good but it hard to handle the paint with an expressive brush.

sketch 9 x 6 on Strathmore oil paper

I made a outline “master” from the painted sketch. I projected to sketch to the final canvas. A panel I had made with Raphael linen on wood panel. I had to make a lot of corrections to the features. The Painting took over a week because off the slow dry characteristic of the Geneva paint. It would have been 3 or 4 days using Lukas paints.

It is still not finished. Some spots are still wet. Very wet. Need to do a little glazing. All in all I happy with the painting and the experience.

Palette at the end showing tertiary neutrals and mixes