Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Spring Comes To Sydenham Village ..10" x 12" ..o/p It is nice to finally be able to do a painting that does not have a snow reminder of the past winter. Sydenham is a small village in the agriculture and tourism area north of my hometown. It is also just south of Frontenac Provincial Park in the Province of Ontario. This panel was prepared with three coats of gesso using an old brush in order to leave a texture of the strokes in the drying gesso.. no coat of colour was added to the gessoed panel later. My method to begin with was to lay in the shadowed areas and some local coloured areas with "runny" colours. (I used the odourless mineral spirits for this step.) I let them set, letting them settle as in what one would see in a "wet in wet" watercolour technique. Once the "wash" had evaporated, I layed in the composition (drawing) on top of the evaporated wash. In some areas that I knew would be lighter when finished, I removed the oil wash with a rag. In other areas, I darkened . The paint that was applied was still in a wash form. Once this wash had evaporated, I was able to apply the lighter colours over the rubbed out lightest areas and lighter colours to some of the dark areas. Lastly, I strengthened some other darker areas, checked for lost and found edges and strengthened some of the highlight areas or lines. The palette used was my same limited palette that I have used for past paintings. I think that all of them were used in some combination or mixture. 'til next..

10 comments:

William R. Moore said...

Frank,
I like, it is a WINNER. Nice color harmony...really like your trees.

jesusest@gmail.com said...

nice colors Frank

Frank A. said...

William R. Moore, Thanks for your comments and compliments, William,. They are appreciated !

Frank A. said...

Jesus, ..Thanks ! Not many if any light yellow-greens out there yet. But, I felt a need to be "more airy" with the colour and "feel" of early spring. :)

Slow down ! As I see it, you are working to hard ... :-)

Unknown said...

Hi Frank,
very nice, thanks as usual for the description of the modus operanda! If I may I would say everithing in the oil move the eyes up, The eyes need a space to rest and a contrastiong motion to keep the thing balanced. That said I still love your red house with those vertical. Happy painting, Mariano

William R. Moore said...

Frank,
Whatever our comments,after all,they are just individual opinions and IMHO, I think you have just the right amount of horizontals (the long one,road, in front of the house and the horizontal formed by the building plus the horizontals in the buildings,to stop any upward movement. The red house also anchors the composition at house level and the trees upward movement slows at roof level and softens in the sky.

Papierflieger said...

Hello Frank,
happy spring time! I like the "hot" colour temperature.

Frank A. said...

Mariano. Nice to see that you are still at it !
Thanks for your assesment and comment of the painting.
I understand where you are coming from when you are talking about the composition. After looking at the painting again, I guess that we are going to have to agree to disagree. :)
On reflection, I think that William R. Moore's stronger rational, as he sees it, has hit the nail on the head, IMHO as to the justification for the reading of the composition in this painting.

Your portrait series has been very interesting, Mariano.

Continued good luck with your paintings.

Frank A. said...

William R. Moore

William, nice to recieve your comments about this painting. I have appreciated reading your thoughts on the compoition. Interesting ! After reading Mariano's views, I decided to have another look at the piece.
Then your post arrived. I was a little surprised after reading it, to find that we had arrived at the near same conclusion.
Thanks for that reinforcement. :)

Take care..

Frank A. said...

Papierflieger..

Martin. Great to hear from you !
Love the "tree blog"... ! and your walks in the woods..
I had lost you for awhile (welcome back !) and was wondering how things were going for you.
Thank you for your comment and have a "happy spring" as while.

All the best..