"Trail Shadows" ©

Over the next couple of months I must paint large paintings for 2 very important shows. One is a four women exhibit "By The Artists' Hand III", in Valencia, CA. and the other is a 2 woman show at Segil Fine Art Source, in Monrovia, CA. In order to keep the blog lively and somewhat interesting I will post the progress of these large paintings. The first one, is titled "Trail Shadows" after the small blog that acted as the model for this piece. Enjoy!

This is the very beginning of every painting. A quick line sketch of the composition. I am placing every element carefully and planning patterns of light and dark within the composition.

Because of the mountain range I painted the sky first so that I could melt the mountain edge into the sky paint with a soft edge. This gives the mountains a feeling of distance, rather then a cut out appearance.

Now I have added all of the dark areas of the mountain range. Leaving white canvas so that the sunlit areas will really glow.

The orginial blog painting can be seen, sitting on the mast above my painting. I have added the sunlight on the mountain peaks.

Working on the mid section to foreground I am painting all of the darkest values. At this point I am studying the patterns that the darks make and adjusting these shapes here and there, until I have pleasing forms. Notice that the darks on the left are very cool, while the darks on the right (sunlit side) are very warm.