In spite of the heat in South Texas, painting is still going on in my studio. I finished the bluebonnet last week and switched back to oils for The Fishing Pier as the acrylics were hard to work with in this extreme heat wave. This painting is completely from scratch as the stretchers and canvas were made and stretched in my shop. I added another coat of gesso to the canvas as I like a clean white surface for water scenes. This work is on an 18 x 24 inch gallery stretched canvas and will have the edges painted when finished.
The inspiration for the painting came from a weekend rv camping vacation on the Colorada River at the LCRA park. This is a beautiful place as it is located where the river flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The river and the beaches are full of sea life and activity; perfect for an old painter to take some time to reflect. Our rv camper has a large window in the back of the trailer in which I spent a lot of time relaxing and looking at this pier. We took numerous pictures and I chose this one to paint as we got lucky and captured a beautiful sunset striking the pier and river's edge.
The first pic is where I left it yesterday and the second is when I stopped today. The temperature in the studio was approaching 90 degrees and I was hungry. The painting is basically undercoated and roughed in at this point. I prefer to get the entire canvas undercoated quickly, so I can see my foundation and where I want to go with the composition. The construction of the pier components took more time than the rest of the painting. Man made objects always seem to take more time. When undercoating, I like to use thinner paint washes and lay in some detail at the same time. The thinner paint doesn't completely cover my tracing lines and builds a base to paint on during the refining of the images, color, light and shadows. I trace the image reference points on the canvas as light as possible and spray a bit of pastel fixative over it to prevent smudging of the lines. Dark lines can be hard to cover and show through the paint. During the next sessions, I will be adding more color and working on the water. So far, the palette includes white, cobalt blue, d.purple, magenta, deep orange, warm white, van dyke brown, terra green, cad yellow light, raw sienna, and payne's grey.
I hope you found this little tidbit interesting. You are welcome to make comments re. the post and painting. If you find any paintings on the blog you would like to purchase, check my website
http://www.jimmiesart.com/ or contact me for availability. We also have most of the paintings available in giclee' prints. Thanks for stopping in.
Let us pray before we paint,
I don't warrant any of my painting processes discussed in my posts, but they work for me.
This is where I stopped for lunch today. I have to get on with this painting as Carolyn wants to eat the pineapple I bought for the model. There is a lot of canvas to cover on a two by three foot surface. I like to block in the entire canvas with the background and subject before starting on much detail. In this painting I did the background first to cause me less grief with painting the greenery blades. The pineapple looks very bright at this point because I am going to add the detail and shadows last. There is paint on the entire surface and should be dry enough to work on tomorrow as I am using liquin as my oil medium and this first layer on the subject is thin. The background was layered on with brush and palette knife and has varied thicknesses for texture. I want the end result to be very three dimensional with a realistic pineapple and an impressionist background. This painting is already spoken for, but I would be happy to accept commissions for another. Giclee prints will also be available. 
