Battenkill@ Salem St, Greenwich, & how I tone panels.

53  F  clouds and sun.

# 429 Battenkill @ Salem Rd, Greenwich

12 x 16

When I went out this morning I wanted water and I wanted something industrial. This is a revisit from last winter.

The light and the colors were spectacular, and the overlook was like a symphony!

There were large heavy clouds, and equally large areas of clear blue sky.

There was a lot of real estate to cover, and the view, from up on the embankment, looking down, also had it's challenges.

Despite the bright colors of a few trees, and some grass, a lot of the trees were thin veils of gray, on top of thin veils of grey.

At this time I'm trying to hit the color/value of areas that seem to blend in with each other, it's a mess. The edge of the dam and the other water works are yet to be defined.

I always start with the big brushes and work my way down to smaller ones, the dam needed smaller brushes, and had to wait.

At this point I hadn't noticed how weird the reflection in the water above the dam was, it may have been because I was looking down at the foreground and across at the far hills and the middle ground, well had some problems.....

Here is where I ended up, there were a bunch of unresolved issues, but in a way the nature of the scene, that is, it's odd angle, maybe it's OK.

My scene

Sight-size shot

This is my spot, the road is Salem St. also rt.29, I'm in the village of Greenwich, going towards Salem.

I was going to do a separate blog post on this, but it's really not that big of a thing.

I used an old tube of burnt umber, sometimes I use paint off the pallet, and I'll mix on a hunch, according to how the last bunch felt. I usually do one of each size, not too many more.

With there being so much turpentine in the mix, you could say this is "lean"

This dries real quick, but it's handy to have a bunch at the ready.



This is my shop, it's a mess, filled with all my carpentry and building stuff, tools, scrap materials, hardware, paint, etc. but a perfect place to do anything messy, and I like that.

Wait's Hill Rd. with piglets!

68  F  mostly cloudy.

It was a ridiculously warm day for this time of year, and although the morning was overcast the cloud cover was thin and there was a lot of light, then the sun made appearance (or two).

#428 Waits Hill Rd.

11 x 14

These are my panels with the marble dust/rabbit skin glue gesso, the tone is thinned out burnt umber, it behaved differently than my previous panels, but not too much. There is sun on it, and shadow.

  Because the scene was generally on the light side and didn't have much dark, I started with the light. When looking at the sky and the road, they were not as different as you might imagine, so they were related on the pallet as well.

This painting had a lot of grays!

The tone was cooler that the orange/red tone I used in the summer, but it still read as warm over all the cool light gray's of this scene.

There were a lot of subtle green as well as the yellow/orange of the foliage, I think the saturation of the yellow was the strongest in the painting, and that brings it out.

Much of my darkest color were trees and other stuff that I wanted to do last, it's not the pure way to do it, but by the time I was ready to add those things, the painting popped.

Here is where I ended up!

Here is my scene, I've been here before, and down the road too.

Sight size shot.

I keep thinking "I'll paint in the village", and somehow end up not in the village!

3 day old piglets!

This was from February, 2013, almost 2 years ago.

#108 Wait's Hill Rd.

2-6-13

Coila Rd, I should have walked!

57  F  mostly sunny!

The Money Shot for today, it couldn't have been a more beautiful late autumn day!

 #427 Coila Rd.

9 x 12

I wanted that light on a yellow tree, and although there are more than a few of them, with the light, finding one that's part of a scene that made sense to me was not easy, I drove around a few miles at least only to end up walking distance from my house.

I thought I had taken more photos earlier in the process......

This scene has a lot of telephone poles, guard rails, signs, wires, buildings etc.....

Here is where I ended up. The drawing of some of the man made objects was a little tricky.

Here is my scene, the light this time of year is so delicious!

Sight-size shot.

I could have walked to this spot.

My pallet.

Battenkill @ Camden Valley Rd. video on color mixing.

59  F  partly cloudy to start,  total overcast to end

Here is the Money Shot for the day.

#426 Battenkill @ Camden Valley Rd.

11 x 14












I made a video it's here;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a49M-2e8OEU

I talk about my pallet, and color mixing.

I was here last winter, the bridge was still under construction. I went to Manchester, Vermont to drop off some paintings on my way back I couldn't settle on a spot, so I ended up here at a familiar one.

I'm using one of my new panels and I like it, it's a bit smoother, but not too much, and it feels right.

lights!

In addition to the bridge I liked the darkness of the water, and the wispy feeling of the mid range trees.




This is where I made the video.

A bridge like this is always tricky, I don't want to get too much detail, but need enough to pull it off. At the start there was some sun on the scene and that gave the bridge some dimension, By the end of the session, the clouds came and everything got flat.

There are some nice far hills, and the mid range has lots of variety in it, plus the scene composes itself.

Moving along......

This is where I ended up, notice the telephone pole, really needs to go last, and at one point it had been illuminated, and now it wasn't, so what to do?

Sight-size shot.

Easy.

This sign is at the bridge.




 Let me know if there were things you want me to fill in, I know there were a lot (a lot a lot) of omissions, I mean it's less than 7 minutes!