THE DEER TRAIL - 8x12"
Colorado National Monument is a little known unit of the National Park System near my home in Grand Junction, Colorado. It offers superb opportunities for painting year round, and a wonderful variety of subject matter, from its deep canyons and sandstone pinnacles to its uplands covered in rabbitbrush, sage, pinons, and junipers.
Winter in the Monument is a particularly beautiful time, and this scene struck me instantly as a classic upland vista. I loved the bright, high key sunshine and find the color harmony of the rich, dense green junipers with the blue hills in the distance and violet shadows in the snow endlessly appealing.
STEP 1: THE THUMBNAIL SKETCH
I usually begin, once I have spotted a potential subject, with several small graphite drawings, roughly 2 x 3". Experimental in nature, they serve to help me hone the composition and arrangement of shapes and values in the piece. I don't spend much time on each one, and just keep making new ones, varying the elements and arrangement, until I feel like I've zeroed in on the best design.
STEP 2: LAY IN THE DESIGN
Using my thumbnail sketch as a reference, I lay in the composition I've selected onto my canvas panel, using dirty turpentine and a bit of cadmium red medium or venetian red for warmth.
STEP 3: BLOCKING IN
My approach to this step can vary from one subject to another. I try to let the particular subject I've chosen suggest where to start and how to proceed. Because this subject was high contrast, I elected to start with the dark trees and sage, since those values and colors are the primary notes in the overall color and value harmony. I mix large pools of these colors, which will become the baseline from which value and color variations will be mixed for the rest of the painting.
STEP 4: REFINING THE MAIN DARKS
Because most of the rest of the piece is very simple, high value shapes, I decide to continue with the darks, adding color, temperature, and value variations to the shadow areas. This will develop the sense of foliage in the trees and sage. Finally, I touch on the highlights where the sun is striking the foliage. Because the rest of the piece is so high-value, and even in full sun the trees are the darkest thing in the painting, I know that as long as these highlights relate correctly to the darks, they'll read.
STEP 5: A CASE OF THE BLUES
The next obvious step is to develop the blue hills in the background and violet shadows in the snow. Pushing my main foreground darks cooler and lighter, I establish the distant blue hills. I then mix and add the shadows on the snow, adding a few warm darks in the foreground where the red soil is exposed.
STEP 6: THE FINAL TOUCHES
The last untouched area of the canvas - the sky - is now blocked in, and the background hills are enhanced, helping to define them and add the appropriate suggestion of detail. I then lay in the snow and begin resolving the foreground, softening and adjusting shadow edges and "punching holes" in the shapes of the sagebrush to help enhance their character. The final steps in the piece will be to soften the sky and fully resolve the edges of the tree foliage where they meet the sky.
FINISHED!