studio

Some may remember late last year I was working on a large painting of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and posting the work as it developed. (You can scroll back through this weblog and see the posts I made as the painting progressed.) I was close to finished, so stopped working on it for a few weeks and come back with a fresh eye. Well, the weeks turned into months, and I am just now coming back to it.

In the last few days, I have painted all over the canvas, mainly lightening up the distant values as they were too dark. I might lighten them up a bit more once the foreground is complete. I also eliminated some of the clouds as they were over powering the rest of the painting. I also slightly changed and worked on the foreground, with more work to do there. It is getting close to finished. Anybody have suggestions?

Here is a detail of part of the foreground.

I am still recovering from a sick spell, but spent more time today working on El Capitan than I have any day yet. At this stage, the painting becomes more fun as the highlights are starting to develop and the painting is taking on a finished look. You can probably tell from the photos below that a lot of progress was made. I worked the cliffs to the right just in front of El Capitan, more of the valley floor, and sketched in the Merced River as it flows through Yosemite Valley.

I also started some of the foreground cliffs. After some thought, I decided to lower the forground cliff where it is much less pronounced. I did this as the previous sketch boxed the viewer in. I want the eye to follow the cliff right into the middle distance and right to the light on El Capitan.

The quick snapshots I take while the painting is on the easel really wash out a lot of color, particularly the sky, where most of the grey you see is actually a bluish purple.

Below is a closeup of the right hand cliffs which show the actual color and values a little more accurately–

My goal is to get this painting about 95% complete this week. If I continue at today’s pace, I should make it!

Normally I would be finished with this painting by now, but other projects, activities, and several days of being under the weather have slowed me down. Today I finally got back to painting since mid last week.

I am still working mainly top to bottom, but since the entire painting was dry, went back over and put in more clouds and detail in places. I also worked more on the valley floor, which is primarily evergreen trees.

Up to this point I have not decided how the foreground cliffs will appear, so now have to decide. The reason being, I don’t want too put much detail on the valley floor directly below which will be covered by trees, etc.

More photos as the painting progresses. I didn’t work on it a much yesterday, but continued today, although I am painting on it only 2-4 hours a day. I have put in most of El Capitan itself and the surrounding cliffs. The top half of the painting is 2/3 done. Once most of it is complete, I will add scattered clouds, etc, and give some parts more definition.

My palette here consists of: Ultramarine Blue, Cobolt Blue, Quinacridone Red, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Red Dark, Sap Green, Transparent Iron Oxide, Cadmium Orange, Yellow Ochre, and Cadmium Yellow Medium. I occasionally use other colors, but this is my primary palatte.

I usually mix a combination of Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Red to form a purple. I also mix Cobolt Blue and Cadmium Red Dark to get a rich gray.