Afternoon Walk in Pacific Grove

Painting "en plein air" on location  - it was cold!

   

The original plein air painting created in PG

I am enjoying doing a commission painting working from a small plein air painting I painted along the Pacific Grove coast a few years ago.  These nice folks bought a note card of the painting at a bookstore that sells my art note cards.  They liked the painting on the card and asked me to do a larger painting for them.  The storms in California have made it difficult to get to my studio until today, but I finally got a start on the under painting.  I will post my progress as it goes.

Step 1 prep the canvas with red paint
and draw the composition

 

Blocking in some of the background color

DAY 1
I like working on a red background sometimes,
especially when there is a lot of green in the painting.
The red background will 
sparkle through in a few places, adding interest. 

Here I have started to block in the focal point tree shapes.  

             Hopefully, I will be able to work on the painting again tomorrow!

Pacific Grove House Painting Finished

After a few more corrections, additions and changes, the painting of the Pacific Grove house is finally finished!  It was really fun to do this painting of this cute house in such a beautiful setting.  I hope the family is pleased with it.  The original painting goes to Oregon soon, but prints and other goodies can be purchased on Fine Art America.  

Pacific Grove House Painting progress

I have reworked the house color to a more muted color.  I still need to put the mobile hanging from the eaves.  Hope to get to that next week.  

We have been having a lot of wet weather lately and it has been making it difficult to get the painting to dry.  I am hoping the coming hot temperatures will help dry the oil paint.  It has to dry so I can give it a coat of varnish and ship it.  

It has been very busy here with my husband having cataract surgery and several shows I am trying to get paintings finished to enter.  Hope to get back to the Pacific Grove house next week.  

More Work on Pacific Grove House Painting

This is what the house looks like today.  My client's uncle lives in the house and he said the lavender had been removed so I don't know exactly where it had been.  The large, tall trees make a wonderful background to this house.

Using my practice painting (see previous blog post), and the many photos I took of the house, I was able to make a drawing in proportion to my 18" x 24" canvas panel and graph out the basic drawing.

These photos show my steps in working out the dark and light values in the foreground and trees.  In the bottom right photo I have added the house color, brick and refined the tree shapes & colors.

These photos show the steps working out the sky color, tree shapes, adding the lavender and shadow patterns on the house.  I also worked on the yard plants and added the fences.

More refinements to the trees, adding the small tree in the front yard, and more work on the lavender.

Here I have added the curb & street and added more plants to the front yard.  I felt the mail box was too big, so I made it smaller so as not to detract from the house.

At this point I feel that I am nearly finished with the painting, except for a few more refinements and pending input from my client.  When the painting is finished, it will need time to rest and dry before signing and adding a coat of varnish.  

Preparing for a New Commission Painting of a Pacific Grove Home

After taking many photos of the house,
I made some quick sketches.
Here is one of them.

 I have taken on a new commission.  A nice lady in Oregon remembers her good times at her grandmother's home in Pacific Grove, California.  She has asked me to paint her grandmother's house to add to a wall in her home.  She plans to surround the painting with photos of family and fun times.  

So I took on the project.  Here are photos showing my process working out the problems of the painting with sketches and a 9" x 12" practice painting.

She fondly remembers the lavender in the front yard, and although it is no longer there, I plan to add it to my painting.  

See the next blog to see how I progress on the 18" x 24" painting.

After making the drawing and graphing it out,
I re-drew the drawing on to a small canvas board and begin blocking in the dark values.
This practice painting was just to capture the color and value patterns. 

Here is the finished 9" x 12" practice study.  I may still make more
changes to this little painting later.

Preparing to Do a Large Commission

I am so blessed to be doing a large 30" x 40" commission painting.  My client wants a copy of a pastel scene I did many years ago.  It is one of my favorite scenes I worked from a photo I took on the way home from Monterey.  I was driving near Casa de Fruita when I noticed a field of beautiful purple corn flowers, dark purple tall weeds, trees, houses and the golden, rolling foothills.  The scene captured my heart.  I have passed by this same spot many times since, but never found those flowers again.

Small oil studies

To get ready to paint the large painting, I have been working on some small oil studies.  One in black & white to study the values and a second smaller 8" x 10" painting, also in oil, to work out any problems I may encounter.  I toned the small canvas with an orangey background color to see if that would work, and I like it.  

You can see the steps I made along the way in the 8x10, although, I was so engrossed in the painting that I forgot to take more photos.  I am so looking forward to getting started on the large canvas.  Come back to this blog as I will be posting my progress... if I remember to take photos!  

Blocking in the dark and light values

Adding buildings and background grasses

A peek at my palette

Moving right along

Working on the foreground

Adding some of the cornflowers and pine tree on the right

Come back later to see work progressing on the large painting.

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