middle steps in an oil painting

At this point I am working with both color and form to get more of the look and feel of what I want the viewer to experience when they see the painting. It is not just working to make the colors and shapes match the ones in the photo – but they have to look ‘right’ – exist in their own color world. Here the next three states …

In state seven I am still working to define the big shapes of the underwater rivers – using color to seperate deep from shallower water. The more I study the image and the painting the more I learn what is what – where is the edge of the land into water …

state eight …. at this point I begin working with the underwater rivers and am having far too much fun with their twisting shapes. I am also continuously working on the rest of the painting. It’s hard for me to stay in one place at one time. I’m always moving around pulling and pushing the image together. I have done a lot of work on the islands on the right.

state nine ….. although I liked painting a lot of the underwater rivers I took out a lot of them because there were too many and they were not reflected in the original image and they made the painting too busy and unfocused. I tried to bring more definition to the ones that were there and grayed down the color by adding burnt umber to the ultramarine blue.

and a slide show ….

This slideshow requires JavaScript.