Claudia Davis Studio: Third Day in Katherine Stats Class

Today we painted at Glacier National Park at a location where Avalanche Creek joins McDonald Creek. It was the most beautiful and perfect location to paint. We started with Katherine demoing a value study and than we each did one as well. After the value study, we began to paint. As we all know the value study does help to place shadows and provides a good plan for the painting. We have the opportunity to make changes and developing a real composition before we break out the oils.

Once the plan is in place and Katherine reviewed, I started painting. One of my goals was to learn how to paint all the greens without painting all the Blankety blank greens. Also the water is a turquoise because of the glacier runoffs. Green mixtures that were not so green Included the following: Real darks of some trees: Transparent oxide red, ultramarine blue and a touch of alizaron. Distant trees: Indian Red and Ultramarine blue, Greens: Ultramarine blue with cad yellow, cad orange and for med darks ultramarine blue with yellow ochre. We mixed cobalt with lemon yellow and touches of orange. There were so many combinations I can't write all of them. What I learned is don't use one color but experiment with all the possibilities keeping in mind distance, shadows, and light. Also the continuing role of color temperature.
The water base color is a mixture of Prussian blue, raw umber and yellow ochre. To this you add white and variations of cobalt blue to cool or orange to warm.

Katherine did a long two hour demo which resulted in me personally wanting to redo my painting and I will. Her painting was really beautiful. It came alive when with one stoke of the palette knife she added a white ripple in the water followed by a beautiful rock. The rock was painted first the light, followed by the warm reflected light and than the dark where the water was hitting it. These two things made the painting sing. Also she eliminates and reaaranges the landscape to make a painting. Watching that process was a really good experience. As Carlton says in"Carlton's Guide to Landscape Painting" paint the landscape as it should be not necessarily what it is. Simplification is so key to good paintings. Watching a demo with that in mind, and painting just what the painting needed is something I hope to practice.

We are painting today at the north end of the Flathead Lake. There are mountains, islands in the lake and a marina with a lot of sail boats. I must remember to simplify, simplify simplify.

Here are pictures from the third day: