Oil Painting Demonstration -- Clew Bay Part II

Oil Painting Demonstration - Irish Landscape
As promised, here is the follow on from the initial sketch Part I for this painting of Clew Bay, which I am working on at the moment.

Painting the Undercoat
The above shows the initial undercoating - the main purpose at this stage is to establish the main colour features for all elements. For the sky, I mixed manganese blue with titanium white and used a number 1 hog hair filbert brush to work in the cloud shapes. I varied the mix proportions to get darker or lighter shadows as necessary. For the mountains I mixed ultramarine blue with the same white for the cloud shadows, and the same blue with white and raw umber (very small amount) to create the grey of the mountains. If the grey turns out correctly mixed, it should have a slight blue feel.
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Mixing Green in Landscape Painting
There are a lot of colour combinations to explain in the above, so this is a bit more of an instinctive painting than the last demonstration of painting a snow scene. The main thing about painting landscapes is to avoid having too much of one shade or colour green. This happens a lot for beginners. I try always to avoid this, having areas of similar green too much. Every area of the painting should have some variety. Our eyes are very sensitive to shades in the green spectrum so we can recognise a large amount of different shades. Mixing blues and yellows creates various greens, but knowing what you are doing to get a certain shade comes from knowing the places of the colours you are mixing on the colour wheel.

In the above, and the following pictures I mixed greens as follows:

For darker dull area greens, ultramarine blue with cadium yellow.
For very dark areas, increase the ultramarine blue in the above mix or include viridian green.

For medium bright greens, ultramarine blue with lemon yellow or cobalt blue with cadmium yellow, manganese blue with cadium yellow.

For bright vivid greens, manganese blue with lemon yellow.

To desaturate the colour of a mix, include the opposite colour on the colour wheel to neutralise down the hue. For example, add a hint of cadmium red or permanent rose, very very tiny amount.

I didn't use really bright greens so much in the painting, as they are not needed. Distance also reduces the greens intensity. As a green recedes into the distance it will lose the yellow component and the blue component becomes more obvious. So don't include too much yellow on it's own in the distant parts. It will ruin the aerial perspective effect. Remember warm colours advance, cool colours recede.
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For the grey of the beach areas, you can use a combination of ultramarine blue with raw umber, or cobalt blue with raw umber. The grey can be lightened with titanium white. It's also good to try varying colours away from what you see in the photo. I tried a little area of more purple shade on some beach areas, using ultramarine blue with raw umber.
The water is similar to the sky, and is just a light coat of paint, using manganese blue and white.

I tried to cover the whole canvas with paint at this underpainting stage to remove the white glow of the gesso. This makes it easier to see colour and light balance as I progress on to the final painting. Below is where things are at the end of underpainting. If you are enjoying this demonstration be sure to check back during the next week, as I complete this picture.

Previous Work - Oil Painting

Freedom - Detail

This is a painting I remember working on in my grandmothers old farmhouse, quite some years ago. I finished it at a slower pace than work I have done recently - not sure if faster is better. Still think about that from time to time. I used to spend a lot of time on some paintings, to get them really perfect. I often felt it was worth it. But on reflection, it really was too intense perhaps.

To a child dancing in the wind

Dance there upon the shore,

What need have you to care,

For winds or waters roar,

And tumble out your hair,

That the salt drops have wet,

Being young you have not known,

The fool's triumph nor yet,

Love lost as soon as won,

Nor the best labourer dead,

And all the sheaves to bind

What need have you to dread,

The monstrous crying of the wind.

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William Butler Yeats. 1865-1939

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I have omitted the second verse...not as nice as above.

Oil Painting Demonstration -- Clew Bay

This is the latest oil painting subject, Clew Bay. I have only just started this and hopefully I will be able to work on it over the next week or so, time permitting. The view is from the beginning of the route up Croagh Patrick, looking north across Clew Bay. In the above, I have sketched the initial scene in cobalt blue as accurately as I could. No I didn't trace!! I just took my time to get everything in the right place! I'm not including the buildings or car-park. I'm using a bit of artistic licence here. Also looks like a big thumbprint on my camera lens, will need to clean it!

Actually last Sunday was the annual pilgrimage up Croagh Patrick and several hundred if not a thousand or more people made the difficult trek to the summit. For the very first time ever, the Irish television network, RTE hauled cables and power and everything up the steep side of this mountain, (quite an effort as it took some days to do this) to allow them broadcast a Mass from the top of the mountain. This happened last Sunday at 10 am.

I climbed the mountain several years ago, with weather similar to the above photo. The view from the top is spectacular and you can see very distant parts of Mayo and down to Clare. The top is flat about the size of a football field but the north slope starts abruptly and is very steep. It is broken rock and scree and impossible to gain a hold on. If you descend onto it from the top, you will just keep sliding painfully down. The route up involves skirting left of this as you climb from the north and reaching the back of the mountain where it is not so bad. There are some sections of scree to climb past however and your foot sinks in among the small stones as you try to ascend. Some pilgrims climb barefoot!! Ouch!! The mountain is known for it's almost exact pyramidal shape, quite unique. Click here, Croagh Patrick to see a painting I did of this mountain from a beach which is to the north west, looking towards it. This was from a slide I took the weekend of my ascent.

Anyway, if people are interested in seeing the progress of this painting, check back to the blog from time to time over the next while... Should be some progress unless I get real busy.
Also, I hope to include a few articles on mixing colours in the blog. Mixing mauves, blues, greens or browns, etc for that just right shade. So sometime soon, I'll get around to that.

If interested, see earlier step by step snow scene painting demonstration.
Tomorrow I think it's time for the poetry corner...