El Capitan
It has been quite awhile since I have done a large work. During this economic downturn, I have concentrated more on smaller pieces which tend to sell better (I am not an artist mercenary, though!). In August, I finished a painting of El Capitan in Yosemite Valley from 4 Mile Trail. The gallery owners were so taken with it, they said I should do a similar large painting. I actually had a larger piece started some years ago, but wanted to paint on a gallery wrap canvas, so I started a new one from scratch. This is the painting I did then–
With the larger piece, I wanted to zoom in on El Capitan just a little more as I wanted the size of the canvas and the massive granite edifice to ‘overwhelm’ the viewer. Of course any painting of El Capitan pales in insignificance to the real experience!
I will chronicle the stages as I progress through the painting on this weblog, as many always express interest in how a painting develops. I started with a small, quick color sketch on a 8×10 panel just to get the colors I wanted. I then sketched and blocked in the painting on a 48×36 canvas, which is below. I did not do a very detailed sketch/block in as I can work off the small color sketch, plus know El Capitan with all its cracks and crevasses fairly well.
You can see the small color sketch in the lower left of the picture above. Since I already have a color sketch, and know the subject matter, in this case, I generally paint from top down, distant to near.