I use to be a Bear...

Bear Patrol (under Painting) 12 x 16

At the end of this summer I had the opportunity to attend a special adult training camp for the leaders of our Stake.  The training camp is called Wood Badge.  It was held up in the beautiful and stunning mountains east of Spring City and Mount Pleasant Utah.  We were at Camp Tifie, which is apart of the Mountain Dell Scout Camp.  I spent a week with my wife and many leaders from my Stake camping in tents and learning how to be better leaders and more how to be better people as a whole.  At the beginning of this experience when you first arrive you are given a name tag with a colored dot on the back.  There were for our camp six different colors.  We soon found ourselves divided into six various groups now called patrols.  Each patrol is represented by a different animal.  Beavers, Bobwhites, Eagles, Foxes, Owls, Bears, Buffalo and Antelopes.  Like I said we only had six patrols so no Buffalo or Antelopes in our wood badge course.  Now once you are assigned a patrol you are that patrol for life.  So my wife will always be an Eagle (she says it will be the only way she will ever be an Eagle Scout) and I will always be a Bear.
Well I decided to do a series of wild life paintings based upon the various animal patrols.  So naturally, since I'm a Bear I'm starting with the Bear Patrol.  Then of course next will be the Eagle Patrol, then I'll follow them in patrol order, Beaver through Antelope.

What we see above is just the under painting, painted in two colors, Burnt Sienna and Burnt Umber.  The whole thing is done quick and rough.  It is to do several things but mostly for me it is to setup the tonal range.   Next as usual I will be painting back to front and top to bottom.  So the sky and distant mountains is the next step.

Back to Pen and Ink!

12 x 16 Pen and Ink

I decided to try something that has been kicking around in my head for a while.  I decided to try doing a Pen and Ink drawing in the wood block engraving style and then use this as the tonal under painting.  To get the greys I just used mineral spirits to wash in the area with the most ink.  Doing this step reminded me how much I enjoyed doing Pen and Ink drawings and back to old days of being an illustrator.  Also as an added dimension to this painting is that so much of cowboy and western equipment has engraving decorations on them.

12 x 16 Mixed Medium

Now I've added some color.  The background is painted in with the trees and barn.  Plus I've roughed in the dirt.  I'm trying to paint thin enough that the ink drawing shows through, thus adding to the over-all detail of the painting.

12 x 16 Mixed Medium

Now the fence is painted in and so is the ground and the Bull.  One of the things I'm trying to do with this is that the Pen and Ink drawing was full of precise detail, but the oil painting is loose and painterly.  With here and there a little bit of the ink drawing showing through.  So far I'm loving the effect.  But this is just a 12 x 16 inch painting, recently I had someone inquire about me doing a 4 x 5 foot painting.  Just thinking about putting down that much ink is making me a little nervous.  So we will see.