Looking Towards the Lake II was painted in my studio from a photo I took on vacation. The openness of the landscape allows me to emphasize the ‘sky scape”, which I love to do in my paintings. I find the challenge of creating a sky that defines the story one of the main things I enjoy in landscape painting. The sky determines the light, time of day, wind, weather, mood and temperature. In Looking Towards the Lake II, I simplified the sky, defining just one large cloud to give scale to the landscape below. The underpainting, above, was painted with liquid acrylics on Clairefontaine PastelMat.
An old tin lid holds my pastel palette while painting, this makes it much easier to find that special colour used previously in the work. If I’m working on a series of paintings from the same location, I’ll often reuse this palette in the next painting. Taking a photo of your final palette is also useful for reusing a successful colour combination in the future.
Detail above of Towards the Lake II. Jewels of colour help draw the eye around the work.
Finished painting above, 10″h x 24″w
Looking Towards the Lake II is available at Cranston Gallery on Main, Bloomfield.