**Authentically Human! Not Written by AI**
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| "Crevice" 16x20 Oil Available |
Not long ago, I sold a large painting from my Canyon Abstraction series. It was one of a trio that I had hung in the bedroom, and I have been missing it like an old friend. This past month, I had some free time and decided to paint it again.
I pulled out my pandemic gouache journals, which had most of the color studies I needed. I also printed out a copy of the painting I sold, plus a few photos of this particular part of the canyon. Interestingly, the only reference I ended up using was the photo of the original, and I used that just for the composition, not for color or form – all this other information was conveniently held in memory, thanks to having spent much time sketching in the canyon over the last few years.
I started off by toning my 16x20 panel with Gamblin's Transparent Earth Yellow. This is a beautiful, luminous yellow that served well as a base color for the canyon wall. After that, I used Burnt Sienna and Viridian to create a warm dark for the shadows and cracks, and Cerulean Blue Hue for reflected skylight. Finally, I used touches of Naphthol Scarlet and Cadmium Orange to indicate hot spots of reflected canyon light in the shadows.
After my first pass at color, I shot a photo of the panel and used my photoediting app (Krita) and a Wacom Intuous tablet to do a little digital painting. I wanted to experiment with color and get a sense of where I might go in the next stage. I liked the result, and I used some of it in the finished painting, such as the cool pinks in the edges of the wall and the cool, blue-green stains on the rock. But as much as I enjoyed my digital painting session, my preference is for using a real brush to push around thick oil paint. Even so, I found the detour useful, and I'll probably do it again.
Another tool I used was the new "gesso and ground blade" from Gamblin. Neat tool, which I also used in this painting for spreading paint over large areas and also scraping back areas.
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| Gamblin's Transparent Earth Yellow |
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| Initial Drawing |
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| Blocking in Darks plus a Few Lines |
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| Adding Some Color |
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| Wacom Tablet and Digital Painting |
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| The "Digital Version" of the Painting (Note that in the final version of the oil, I departed slightly from this.) |
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| The Gamblin "Gesso and Ground Blade" |
