Morning on the Willamette 12"x24"
Though surrounded as I am by Oregon's natural beauty in the form of lakes and mountains, trees and leaves and skies, I find that I return again and again to the same spot to study the different effects of light on different days, different weather conditions, different times of the day. Light on water especially intrigues me, and one could spend a lifetime trying without ever capturing it completely. The water is moving, the light dancing, and how can one imitate that? And yet I am finding it easier to quickly capture a bit of the feeling of it, crudely; my focus is not on the delicacy of brushstrokes, but on the importance of value and temperature and overall effect, and at the end of an hour or so I step back and a part of me wishes I had been more careful and deliberate and another part of me (the framer, perhaps, wanting to pound some boards together and get this house built!) is satisfied that something got done. Maybe after another few years of this there will emerge something out of this sloppy rush that will be a personal style, though I confess I haven't given a lot of thought about that so far. Maybe I should? It's hard for me to worry much about reputation when I don't yet have the oh-so-many necessary skills I'm trying to pull together.
Iron Mountain Trail 11"x14"
After seeing the wonderful work Randall Tipton is able to do working on Yupo, I decided to give it another try. I thought it might work well with the bright light of our recent snowfall, and it does seem to allow for a glow to come through areas that are scraped clean of paint or thinly washed. For the most part I just left the Yupo uncovered to represent the sunlit snow, like a watercolorist would leave the white paper. I still struggle with getting an even coverage, as it seems to give up its hold on the paint where I go back over it to layer something. I find that I need to let it dry if I want to build up anything, and then of course it is too late to take advantage of its slick workability and luminosity.
1 comment:
Mitch, a light under coat of acrylic medium will give the Yupo some tooth and not be so slick yet still have all the wonderful light reflective qualities. Made for snow!!
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