First Painting in a While

Taking a few clues from Margaret Kessler's book "Painting Better Landscapes", I practiced foliage...how exciting. I say that jokingly. It's difficult to understand the thrill of a tree until you look at it differently and actively duplicate it in technique. This exercise was very fun and I'm pleased with the results. The first few "sketches" I produced from my imagination and the second piece, a palm, was done from a photo.



The basic technique relies on building up a form or overall shape of a tree with a thinned wash of oil paint, mapping out darks and lights. Next, I apply a local or base color in a middle value with a slightly thicker wash. Now, I add mixes of dark and light colors, involving temperatures, to fill out the form with thick paint in a series of dabs and strokes depending on the nature of the tree's personality. I did the exercises directly on a white surface, so the values in the sky are not all that consistent. In anycase, it gives me plenty of ideas on how to proceed with a full piece where I would work on a toned surface to have background colors show through.