winter river underpainting WIP

[Tom Christopher]

Hello Artists, I was requested to do a WIP of the Winter river paintings I have been doing. This is one I completed over the last couple of days.. The scene is from the same area along the Iowa River in January painting,

pic1... the initial set up.. 20 x 28 sheet of Wallis paper reference photos on the left of paper.

2. Began to apply under painting. I decided on an acrylic wash . I wanted stay with a bright sunny day so I again chose warm colors for the exposed grasses and winter vegetaion. I also decide early where the dark areas are and painted them with a mixture of blue and burnt umber.
The back groung trees arepainted with red and burn umber. I went over the
painted area while still wet with a tissue to feather the tree tops.

3 Here I have begun to add white pastel to the snow field and light blue to the dark areas ( very lightly to let the underpainting show thru.

4. Here I have changed completely over to pastels for the finishing phase. it is important to me to let the underpainting show thru when ever possible.
Thank You, Tom





http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/08-Jan-2005/35607-finished_winter_river.JPG

[chewie]

thanks tom!!!!!! this is just what i was hoping for! those background trees you do are so great! i will be studying this for the whole day! nice painting in the end also! this was very kind of you.

[meowmeow]

Thanks Tom! It looks great and it is always helpful to see how someone ends up with the wonderful paintings like you do!

SAndy

[O'Aieghlans]

Wow -- this is so fascinating. Thanks for sharing some of your secrets! You really seem to understand this type of subject in this medium.

[Pinecone Conniff]

Excellent!! This technique really suits you!...it's great to see how it comes together and why it works so well!...Thanks for the WIP and the simple effective lesson!! :clap:
Annette

[Tom Christopher]

Thank you all for commenting--I reworked some weak areas and detailed a little more . I hope I didn't over work the trees in the foreground ... any way here it is---Tom


http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/08-Jan-2005/35607-finished_winter_wip.JPG

[SweetBabyJ]

Wow- you're really getting good at this stuff! Nice distance, great cold, winter feel to this. Are you feeling more comfortable about this style now?

Only thing I can see is the very thin "stick-trees"- those verticaldashes in the foreground- need to be more varied- they're a bit lined up. I don't recall what book it is, something like "The Secret to Great Painting" or something, but all it boils down to is varying *everything* a little bit. That means the shapes AND the spaces in-between, in this case. Maybe clump a few and that'll do it.