Showers Over Lone Pine

Showers Over Lone Pine - 9" x 12" - Oil by Greg Newbold

Here is another painting that I finished up for my recent show. This one was painted in the Owen's Valley of California while on a trip with painter friends Richard Hull and John Berry.  When we took the trip a few years back, I really didn't feel like I had a grip on outdoor painting at the time. I was a relative newbie to plein air painting and it was my first extended painting trip. Not that I am now some sort of expert, but I feel a certain comfort level now that did not exist at all then. Most of the paintings I did on that trip seemed to be failures in the moment and many sat in a pile of rejects for a long time. One by one, I have pulled them back out and evaluated what was missing or what aspect could be fixed or improved to give the picture a finished feel. I am neither a good enough painter nor a purist enough to consider my field studies finished when they go from the easel to the carry box, hence I am not averse to painting back into them in the studio. For this one, I was startled at how close it was to being decent simply by glazing over the whole thing with some medium. That simple step popped the contrasts and bled life back into the color. It took me a few hours of applying cleaner color and more texture here or a bit of a glaze and scrub there to really bring this one around, but I am happy with the result now. What I have learned from hours in the field is that the essence captured in a plein air study painted from direct observation is much more powerful than anything I can get from a photo. I used the photo reference I took that day to inform me on detail and value much more than I used it for color as the color notes painted from life were much more interesting and felt more honest. I try to tap into my memories of being in the field even when I paint from photos. This one is still available for anyone interested.

Cityscape Painting Part 1

We camped in the grassy median while painting this scene.

I took my class to the historic district of downtown Provo, Utah to paint buildings this week. I began a scene of my own the first day and I have to admit the prospect of capturing buildings was much more challenging than I expected. Some of the things that I realized while attempting to paint my chosen scene are as follows:

Blocking in the basic shapes

1- The drawing aspect necessary to capture architectural elements is critical. You must take extra time and care in your observational drawing in order to make sure that your proportions and perspective are correct.
It became very important to capture  the vanishing perspective of the horizontal planes as well as keeping the verticals absolutely plumb.

2- Accurate perceptions of color and value are more difficult. The addition of many different local colors and values in buildings pose a challenge that is not so obvious in landscape painting. For instance, I noticed that the shadow side of a white building in my scene was nearly the same value as the sunlit dark gray facade right next to it. Color and value must be accurately observed and mixed in order to capture the right feel of solidity in your structures.

3- It takes much longer (at least for me right now) to paint a city scene on location, mostly because of the above two reasons.

Progress after an hour and 45 minutes.

I found myself really enjoying the challenge of painting a city scene and look forward to finishing this one up next week. I suspect there may be more urban painting in my future.  I'll post a picture of how it turned out when it's done.

Plein Air Cottonwoods

Afternoon Cottonwoods - 8" x 6" Oil on masonite

By Greg Newbold

Yesterday I pulled out a couple of the paintings I did on my California painting trip from last fall and spent a couple of hours working them up to finish. I was not satisfied with how either of them were looking and the paint had turned pretty dull during the drying process. I was pleased and surprised how much the paint came alive again when I brushed some medium back over the top of the entire painting to "butter" up the surface. I don't like to paint back into a picture when the surface is dry, so a bit of medium helps the paint to slip a little. One area that did not revive very well was the sky. The color was too dull and rather gray, so I repainted the entire sky pumping the blue a bit and using cleaner mixtures of color. I rather like how this little picture looks currently. Now to find a buyer...

Plein Air Painting previously on Life Needs Art:
California Plein Air Trip 2
California Plein Air Trip 3
To the Desert Again

Finishing Plein Air in Studio

South Lake - Oil on panel, 10" x 8"

This painting was started during my recent painting trip to California. I still consider myself a real plein air novice and consequently some of my studies really weren't up to my finished standards. A lot of plein air painting purists would cringe at the thought of reworking an on location painting in the studio, but for me the experience of beginning outdoors only heightened the process once inside.

South Lake - as painted on location

The first impression that I captured outdoors held a lot of good things to me, including the overall color sense and the overall composition, but I was not satisfied with the either the brushwork, nor the texture of certain areas. I felt like the trees in particular did not really feel like the trees I observed. I wanted to also add more depth to the shadow planes and better define some of the shapes I found in the landscape. I lightly "oiled" the entire painting and began a process of evaluating and added paint strokes in almost every area of the piece.

Brushwork detail

Some passages received just a few brushstrokes while others were nearly completely painted over. I focused on more pleasing brushstrokes, more interesting color as well as shifts in color temperature. Overall I spent somewhere around three hours reworking this piece and I am much more satisfied with the result. A collector friend of mine is buying it for a Christmas present, so I have popped it in a frame for him.

A Good Frame Makes A Big Difference

Rabbit Brush- by Greg Newbold, 8" x 8"- Oil

It never ceases to amaze me how a good frame or the right frame can really make a painting look finished. I really believe that a good frame should enhance a picture without drawing attention to itself. I have been having some custom frames made lately for my landscape and livestock paintings. I searched around and found Gold River Frames in Cedar City, Utah. Travis Humphries custom makes frames for artists, galleries and museums across the country. I love the seamless corners and the custom finishes. He'll make anything you want and finish it however you want, anything from black to finely polished 24k gold leaf. I do a lot of odd sized paintings anyway, so I was always needing custom sized frames, so I am delighted to have found Gold River. He'll ship your frames anywhere in the country, so if you like what you see, consider having him make your next frame.

Gold River Gallery
This painting in progress on location

Alabama Hills

One of the most interesting places we visited on our recent painting trip to Owens Valley, California, was the Alabama Hills, near Lone Pine.Unfortunately the weather was a little sketchy and we opted to draw rather than paint in case the heavens decided to open up rain on us.

The unfortunate side affect was that the skied were overcast and the light relatively flat. I would have loved to have seen these rock formations on a clear day along with what I am sure would have been fantastic shadow patterns. As it was, the rocks were unbelievable. The outcroppings jutted out of the ground everywhere at every angle, some as large as 30-40 feet high. Eons of wind and rain have weathered them into rounded mounds fractured with fissures and cavities.

It is no wonder that Hollywood has filmed more than 300 feature films, TV episodes and commercials among these incredible rocks formations (including Iron Man, Gladiator and the classic monster spoof Tremors). I was mesmerized. Here are a couple of the photos I took along with the sketch I made. I'd love to go back someday and really paint them. Until then I will have to be satisfied with my photos and painting from memory.

California Plein Air Painting 3

East of Independence - Oil, 6" x 8"

We lost the brilliant sunshine of California on day three of painting, which posed a challenge. We decided to head up to the desert flat on the east bench above Independence, California, a little slip of nothing town you'd miss in the middle of the night. The overcast skies flattened out most of the terrain and I was forced to reevaluate possible subject matter. For this painting I focused on the horizontal banding in the landscape and the several layers of atmospheric separation as the landscape receded. The sky was changing pretty quickly and I eventually had to just pick a cloud formation and focus on the painting rather than what was happening in the landscape front of me. I faced the same thing earlier with Cowhorn Valley Ridge, so I just ran with whatever light and arrangement I though was most interesting. These paintings also forced me to paint quickly and make committed decisions. I think the most time I spent on any of these paintings was a little over two hours. I like the confidence of stroke and color that I found while painting outdoors.