It started by looking into the water. What I found wasn’t what I expected. I admit I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but what I saw interested me a great deal. So I began a series of paintings that looks at what’s under the water, what’s on top of the water, and what’s reflected on the surface from above and out of view. It only came into view slowly!
Here are two paintings that evolved from the same reference photo above:
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1. Reflections: Triple Vision
Above is the initial underpainting after several layers and with white chalk sketch for placement of leaves.
Building up layers of more underpainting and highlights in the above version and eventually lights/darks and shadows.
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| The finished painting: Reflections: Triple Vision, oil on cradled panel, 18 x 24 inches |
2. Same reference photo, but cropped to a different area:
Initial underpainting below shows areas reserved for rocks above and below the water (no masking used, just tonal variation). In the second painting I’m beginning to develop shape, shadow and objects above and below the water.
Reflections: Last Melt is a composite of a number
of reference photos:
