After the Rain 4×6 – Live Painting Session!
Transcript and Key Insights
We’re still in 4×6 mode right now. I wouldn’t mind doing another 5 to 10 of these before moving on. When you get hooked into an idea, it can be very powerful, you can just let it carry you along for a while. It’s all about imagination and whatever’s inspiring you at the moment. The problem with giant paintings is if they’re not great, that really sucks. So for now, I’m enjoying the momentum of these smaller works.
I painted this particular scene many years ago, maybe nine years back, based on a photo I took in England. Back then, I was doing a lot of five by seven studies followed by eight by ten larger versions. But I discovered I was often much happier with the study than the larger painting. These days, I’ve moved away from that approach. Now when I tackle a scene again, I’m painting it at the size I want from the start.
The Reference and Creative Choices
There’s a lot of beautiful color in this reference, but I did have to make some adjustments. One issue: some of the trees don’t have leaves. I hate painting trees without leaves. I’ve done it successfully before, but I don’t like the effect. Here’s the thing, you don’t have to paint things you don’t want to paint. That said, if there’s something you want to paint but you’re avoiding it because you’re being cowardly, don’t do that. That’s not acceptable. For this one, I decided to minimize the bare trees and focus on what’s working: the overall color harmony and the composition.
What I love about this reference is the color story. We’ve got mauves in the sky and mauves in the ground, with very warm, saturated tones throughout. That nice color harmony is going to make this a strong painting.
Color Mixing Strategy
Let me start with the sky. I can see it’s got some bluish tones with purple undertones. I’m going to bring in Dioxazine Purple, don’t ask me to pronounce the full name. The key when pre-mixing is: don’t make giant amounts of paint. Put some aside. You’re going to engage with the color more effectively that way, and you’ll have enough to adjust as you paint.
Here’s my first sky mix, a stepping down from dark to light. Next, I’m going for something a little more bluish with some purple. That’s pretty nice. A little more stepping down with the yellows. See how tiny that is? But it will have an impact.
For the orangy colors, I’m going to temper it with purple. That’s self-tempering right there. I could end up knocking it right out if I’m not careful. More Mixing Red here. This is all pre-mixing, so it’s not do or die. It’s just engaging with the colors, trying to get eight to ten basic colors without overdoing it. No paint’s on the painting yet, so it’s a great place to get your head wrapped around the piece.
For the yellows, I don’t need a ton. The Cadmium Yellow goes a long way, it’s expensive, but it really does. Just a tiny bit gives me the intensity I want. I can always make it more intense while I’m painting.
For the whites and highlights, I need something bright and crisp, but nowhere near the pure white in the reference. That won’t work. I’ll go just a bit brighter now, and there’s the full sky color story.
Now for the landscape. There are a lot of cool colors in this scene. I’m going to mix a dark green starting with Mars Black unadulterated. You don’t want to spread the black around, so I’m going to lighten that until I get a discernible difference. A bit of red in there would be appropriate, I’ll add Burnt Sienna. A lot of times you just automatically start chucking reds into greens without even thinking about it, but being intentional matters.
Here’s my middle green. Now I’m going to bring in some Permanent Green Light, which is the greenifier that makes everything more green. That changes things up from the standard mix.
For a reddish-brown tone that I’ll use in the trees, I’m tempering Mars Yellow with Raw Sienna. Raw Sienna can barely stand up to it, but I like that interplay. Let’s go further with this tempering action. Burn Sienna gives me that reddish-brown tone I want to cram into the tree areas.
For the grassy accents, I’m going to mix Permanent Green with some brighter yellows. That’s crazy bright, but we’re going to moderate it. A little Mic Screen will have a moderating effect because of the black in it. It’s still pretty bright and nice. If I want to go brighter, I’m going to put a little bit of Cad Yellow in there. That’s the color we’re aiming for.
For the road, I’m starting with Mars Yellow and some Mixing Red. That’s nice. Now I’ll mix a darker version using a little bit of my drawing color. It’s not too chromatic, that road is already verging on too chromatic in the reference. For a second road color, I’ll start with Mars Yellow again but spread it out a little differently. That’s really zappy, doesn’t look like road color yet. Let me bring in some white and more Mixing Red. That’s better. That’s our color mixing session, twelve colors total for this landscape.
Painting the Sky
I’m going to start with the sky. I don’t want a big fat brush for this, something a little smaller. I’ve got a size two that’ll work.
I can see there’s a big diagonal in the sky from the reference. Watch out for diagonals, sometimes you can avoid them, but you always must reconcile them. This one’s super dark, which is good. One of my general policies: if you’ve got color in one part of the sky, you want to have it in another as well. Try to avoid isolated spots of color, even if they’re small.
I’m bringing in a little purpley color here to balance things out. I don’t want any part of my painting to be too much one color. I’m going to pull a bit more of this red glow and mix it to another purple, then do a little blend. I’m happy with how this brush is working.
Now for some exciting red tones. I think I can mix this with some madder. The reference is purple all the way, but I decided to bring in some gray just so that other gray on the other side isn’t too lonely. See, this is why I didn’t pre-mix a ton of intense color, it’s very easy to just make it more intense while I’m painting.
Looking at my older work from 2011 and 2012, I notice I wouldn’t go this bright in the sky. But I’m going brighter now. That looks nice. Let me go a little lighter there. That’s cool. I think I’m going to leave it. There’s a bit that’s ugly, let me fix that up. A little more zippy now, especially now we’ve got that bright white in there. That’s a nice sky. It looks great.
Building the Landscape
Time to move into the landscape. Not a ton of strong greens in this, but I like to come off the darks and pull some color out. I can do that with reds too without getting carried away.
Into the reds now. I’m throwing some red in, and this is why actual Cad Red is on my palette. I’m just being intuitive here rather than pre-mixing every single application. It’s a bit dark, I want more intensity. That’s going to have to be a little lighter. I need a bit more green as well.
I like the greens in this particular tree mass. There’s a bunch of things going on. You saw me add orange in there, that’s nice. Sometimes you’ve got to wipe off your brush because there’ll be too much of whatever other color was in there before. You’re trying to change things, but nothing’s happening. Everything here is really dark to middley, but we’re going to bring in some real popping accents in a minute.
I’m switching to a smaller brush now, a Trekell, because I need something a bit less heavy for some of the next moves. Let me do the road first. There’s more pink in the reference, but that’s all right. I’m going to step down to a size one over ground three, one. Start with the bright green. We’re not going to stop there though. I want that same green over in the tree. That’s a tan that things are going to want to do there. We’re popping greens, we’re done.
I knew this painting was going to look nice. And it does. That’s what I love about fall type things, you can just go nuts with the color. There’s a little lighter section in that road where I need to neutralize things a bit. There we go. It’s pretty strokey, but in a good way. I’m not going to quiet it down too much. I like it.
And that’s it. We’re done.
Take good care of yourself. Stay out of trouble. And fight the power.
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