Summer Focus ~ working on painting water!

If you've been looking at my blog this summer, you've noticed that I've been taking a course in painting! Its been fun to be a student this summer...as I'm usually in the teacher role.  One of the things we did a lot of in this class was drawing on site - and yes, even some painting on site too! 
When it comes down to it, value (range of darks and lights) is essential to any kind of drawing and painting and that is not different in landscape painting.  So, here are some of my drawings from the beginning of class.  Here we were looking at drawing the values of moving water and still water, while rendering reflections accurately.  Learning to "see" what is really there is one of the things I talk to my classes about continually as they learn to draw.  That's no different in this scenario... learning to see!  Even if its moving!  (It takes a lot of practice!)

 

 

After working with drawings, we did value sketches in oil.  In a value sketch, we didn't use color - we worked on just finding the correct lights and darks for the what the scene required.  This was done on site - with an audience at times - as I painted what I saw. 

Finally, after the values are added in correctly, then color can be applied. 

Klein Creek, 8x10 Oil on Canvas

This is my small finished painting, Klein Creek.  You can probably see that we have had a lot of rain and this little creek, which is usually rather slow and lazy was running very fast!  

We also needed to do a painting of still water.  There's a small local lake nearby and it was here by Lake Ellyn, that I found that quiet space to create another painting.  The reflections in this painting were quite different from the reflections in moving water (above).

Quiet Water, 12x9" oil on linen panel

That's how this painting, Quiet Water, came to be. 

 

 The final assignment of this course was to do a more detailed value study of a water scene and then render it in full color.  Again, looking for accuracy in drawing in the values is very important.

Herrick Lake, 8x10" oil on gessoed panel

 

 

 

 SOLD

 

And finally, Herrick Lake, was my last painting for this 4 week course.   You can see that the mirror-like surface is what this painting portrays, and that was different than either of the other 2 paintings you see above.  You can also see that green was a predominant color this summer.  With all the rain we've had, our local landscape is quite lush and very green! Green has many iterations, however, which became a challenge to use that color in a variety of ways.  Herrick Lake has found its home!