Shifting Gears Again

I took my bell tower painting off the easel and sat it on some shelves in my office/studio (a.k.a. living room). I was dismayed…stuck, if you will. I wasn’t satisfied with what I was doing but I didn’t know what to do about it. So, I contemplated it as I went about my day-to-day business. What to do. What to do.

I had been painting it using several photographs from different angles as my resource material. I wanted to capture the variety of color and variety of stones used in this beautiful structure. But the way I was going about it I was going to have to paint each and every stone and then detail it. That’s not the look I wanted nor was it the technique I wanted as it sounded tedious and boring.

In my blog of 05/20/08, you can see where I was going with my plan. I had painted quite a bit more than shown in those pics but I didn’t photograph it at that stage. After I made my color chart (see second blog entry of this date below), I was more confident that I could accomplish the various colors in the rocks I saw in the photographs. So, I had no choice but to rework all I had done on the stonework.

I painted the inside of the belfries and the end of the structure on the left. After painting the end of the structure with the underpainting, I went back and dry brushed in the suggestion of the rocks. As you can see here, it gave a much more realistic look. I was pleased with that effect. I may have to tone down the blue although there are some rocks that look particularly blue in the photographs I have.

Next, I painted in the areas where the stucco was still on the walls and then painted over all my stones with an underpainting. Here’s what it looks like now.

I think this new technique of dry brushing the rocks in will work much better. I'll go back and add highlights to some of the rocks. But this way, I can use the underpainting to give the texture to the rocks as I let it show through the dry brush strokes. I’m going to paint a little looser and trust my artist’s instinct a little more. I’m going to exercise my artistic license a little more and lighten up. This is supposed to be fun!