New Artworks

 

Wakulla Cypress, oils on panel, 18"h x 14"w.

The first week in June I had the great opportunity to take an oil-painting workshop with master artist Steven Walker in an unusual setting: Snow Fielding's mill in Millwood. I hadn't done much painting in oils since we moved to Front Royal, except for a couple of commissions, and felt my skills had become rather rusty.

 

Steven Walker's demo with students.

Steven's demos were awesome--he works with amazing speed and sureness of touch! The materials he uses were new to me too--mostly double-sided plastic panels and aluminum/copper panels made by Raymar. He sprinkles the painting surface with a solvent-free medium made by Gamblin, which helps to spread the paint on the panel, eliminating the need for linseed oil; this medium helps the paint to dry faster, becoming tacky in just a few hours.

I had not realized that Gamblin also made a solvent-free gel medium and bought the gel medium rather than the liquid, and discovered the gel medium didn't spread quite the same way as the liquid. I ended up using way too much medium on my first panel, and applied it to the smoother side, which made it very difficult to apply the paint--a mess, in fact.

 

First painting: Trillium Trail, 14"h x 18"w.

Fortunately, my messy painting dried overnight while in the back of my car (it gets very hot there at this time of the year), so that I could continue working on it the next day. I stumbled around trying to turn my painting into something with interest, and eventually managed to get an acceptable painting. The "Trillium Trail" was the best I could do, but I think the painting needs more drama. I'll probably try to paint this again sometime and see if I can do it better.

 

Bear Loop Trail, 16"h x 20"w.

My next workshop painting was a classic Virginia mountain landscape--the Allegheny ranges seen from the top of Warm Springs Mountain. One of the things I struggled with using the gel medium on the smooth surface of the panels was that skies would become streaky, and need another layer of paint to smooth them out. Everything in this painting took two layers of paint to achieve, and the colors/values are still not quite right. I guess it takes the right amount of paint/gel medium with just the right touch to spread the paint. It takes a lot of practice to get this right.

 

Hiker at Calmes Neck, 16"h x 20"w.

 

My third effort (above) started off a bit better--the lighting of the photo was easier to deal with, with strong light and shadows. I still didn't get the right val-hues (as my old teacher Lee Boynton would say) on the first layer of paint, but it became easier to adjust the values as I went on.

On our last day, one of the other students (we were all female, BTW) brought a lovely bouquet of hydrangeas from her garden, and Steven used it for his last demo. His painting has such a wonderful, looseness, just enough detail there to convey the sense of the flowers, the 3D modeling and colors--just perfect!

 

Steven Walker's last demo piece, 8" x 8"

I'd love to be able to paint that loosely and still communicate all the important details to convey the depth of dimension and lighting in my oil paintings, I'd be very happy.

 

Wakulla Cypress, first layer

 

With the inspiration of Steven's example, my last painting started out somewhat better than the others, thought the first layer (above) is still streaky, I was starting to hit the val-hues a bit closer to what was needed, and the brushwork was looser. I didn't get to finish this one at the workshop, and brought it home for the second and final coat. The result is what you saw at the head of this post. I think this one turned-out best of the four.

I'll probably submit the last two of these oil paintings for Art at the Mill's fall show to see if they find a buyer there--we'll see.