11 February 2023 Assignment: S02E07 - Brown Mountain

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Assignment

This weeks focus was on a different kind of mountain - one with more rock, and less snow.  So I was looking forward to it.

With paints set out, and canvas set up I began work.  Right off the bat, I might have put too much liquid white on.  I thought about this because as I started putting in the sky my brush began to take in quite a lot of the liquid white.  I wouldn't find out until a later episode that I caught on live PBS that one way to remove the liquid paints would be to use a dry paper towel  Hmm - seems so obvious and yet ... I blame this on my Marine Corps training.  Do EXACTLY as told.  EXACTLY.  

But on to the painting.  With the sky in place, and not horribly done I set to my maintain.  And this is where we begin diverting from the colors listed in the book.  No worries.  If you are following along with the Joy of Painting videos you should note that my color listing is accurate.  If you are using his books - make note of the Burnt Umber used to highlight rocks on mountains, and Indian Yellow used later in the shrubbery.

In any case - as he always says - this is your world, you can do what you want.

The base of the mountain is where things really took a left turn for me.  Trying to apply Sap Green and Cad Yellow, then using the 1" brush to lift it, or pop it, up gave me fits.  And the next step also gave me issues, starting in on the trees.  I probably need to toss out my poorly maintained brushes and just start with new ones.  My fan brushes have become quite stiff.  So I should get rid of them this weekend.

At this point I had achieved what I came for - a rocky mountain.  Now I felt free to diverge from the source image.  However in doing so I made a couple mistakes.

My first accident was in not paying enough attention to dark areas, so the light areas would show, especially with respect to the ground.  I also set the left side of the lake back much further, thank in the source image.  I liked this but it cause me issues later on with respect to the water boundaries.  As my wife said, it looks like the pond is going up hill.

Now for the close up evergreens.  Mr. Ross used a 2 inch brush here, something I am not comfortable with yet on a smaller canvas.  So, something I need to attack on a day of practice.  I haven't practiced much recently, time has been difficult to find with all that is going in.  I need to set aside time for that.  And this may have been the issue of my foreground issues.  He uses the 2 inch brush to lay in the foreground - which I did not do.  

This mis-step left me with quite a foreground problem.  Well, I can just say it is a light snow?  In the end, this led to a bit of mud mixing.  Well, time to stop fidgeting and step away.

Anyway, its been a week now and the painting was dry enough to sign so here it is.  Now I just have to wait another six months before varnishing.  Hmm.

S02E07 Brown Mountain
(c) 11 February 2023 Gilbert Blankenship

One thing I find interesting is that the image (photograph) looks a bit different than the painting.  I notice in the photograph canvas (especially tooth) coming through that I do not see on the actual painting.  And in some instances, a bit of color variation as well as a bit of moire effect.  Now back in my photography days I understood what caused and how to eliminate that - but I have long since forgotten.  Perhaps one of my friends still in photography can help out here.

Any-whoooo, I think next time around I will break the header out into to sub-headings.  Assignment, to discuss what I am suppose to be doing and Failures..... I mean Results to discuss my happy accidents.

Thanks for viewing and feedback.  Stay tuned next weekend for today's painting!
- Gil

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