WIP: Paintings, Sneak Preview

I’ve been mostly blogging about my prints, with good reason: that’s what I’ve been working on lately. But it’s time to get the easel out and finish the paintings I’ve started. Plus Sarah-Hope gave me a plein-aire easel as a combined birthday and anniversary present, and I’m planning on going out to paint in the open. That’s a whole new venture for me, and I’m very excited about it. It will be the best of both worlds: hiking and painting, all at the same time!

So in no particular order, here’s what I’ve got queued up. Be warned that their sizes in this blog are not proportional to each other; pay attention the the dimensions listed to get an idea of the actual size of each painting.

Black Oak
28″ x 22″

This is almost finished; I just need to clean up the top 2/3 a little bit, and finish the hills and foreground grass.

Fire Road
28″ x 24″

A fair amount of work still to go: I want it all to be more fantastic, like the shrubs in the center. Think Van Gogh in the insane asylum. Fire roads, in California, are the dirt roads cut through the forests to allow crews to clear brush and fight fires, and they can be very hot to hike on. This time, think mad dogs and Englishmen.

Hill Road (working title; I’m not sure what it will be named)
18″ x 24″

This is actually a very old canvas that I found tucked away behind others when I moved to Santa Cruz. I’d have to guess I started it in 2003 or 2004. I’ll keep it pretty much the way it is, just finish details and surface texture.

View From the Train
36″ x 24″

There’s a fair amount of work to be done on this. The tire tracks need some color changes, and I might consolidate them so there are fewer of them. The hills and house in the distance need work, or the house may disappear altogether.

Eucalyptus Forest
12″ x 16″

I’m still finding inspiration from my pilgrimage in Spain. This image is based on the forests in Galicia. It’s almost finished, just a few touch-ups to the sky color, and making the foreground shrubbery a bit more dense in color. Phtalo blues and greens tend to be transparent if you use them straight-up.

The Road (working title)
24″ x 24″

Again, an image from Spain. Specifically, looking down from the ridge you climb after leaving Castrojeriz. This is just roughed in, so there’s lots of work left to do, but the color balance is about right. I’ll add more reds-yellows-ochres to the fields.

Looks like I have my work cut out for me! So I’m off then, to paint.