Cropped Crabapple

7x5" , charcoal sketch


Still working with getting more familiar with trees. I've got an itch to do some fruit still life, so if that ends up happening I'll post it tomorrow.

practice

Tree Trunk Sketch, 7 x 5 inch

In my quest to become a better landscape painter I've started a new virtual workshop, Drawing & Painting Trees, with landscape painter Deborah Paris. She's a wonderful teacher and firmly believes that in order to paint the landscape one needs to understand the characteristics of the natural world around you, and the best way to do that is to get out your sketch book and get to work. Apparently, this practice was quite common for some landscape painters in the early years to create loads of sketches during the summer months, thus providing source material for painting during the winter months.

Tonalism

I've been busy reading and sketching for a virtual workshop that I'm taking with tonalist painter Deborah Paris. This is an entirely different process than the direct, alla prima method I'm used to. Tonalism involves using lots of glazing, using similar values and if all goes well, arriving with a sublime end result. Deborah's starting advice is to create many thumbnail sketches of your subject in order to arrive with a composition that works, because if it doesn't work small it will never work large, good advice! Time to sharpen up the pencils and crank out some more sketches....

Quick apple

Probably won't get to painting today so I thought I'd try a quick apple sketch. I have some organizing, signing, varnishing, framing and other stuff that needs to get done.