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.

This is how it all starts

Rough in Pencil stage

With every painting it all has to start somewhere.  But even before I get to the point of drawing on the canvas.  Many hours of work have already been invested in the painting.

 I've got to decide first on what I want to paint

    With this painting I knew it was going to be a Wildlife painting.  I've been wanting to paint another Elk too.  So I started thinking about Elk and their environments.  I watch videos on YouTube of Elk in the wild.  I also knew that this painting will be put up for Auction in Price Utah, so some place in Utah.  When I would talk to people about this painting, I would tell them about the Elk then I kept saying it will be in the Uintas somewhere.  So it is going to be an Elk in the Uintas.  Also after talking with a guy I work with at the Provo Temple.  I told Him I wanted some type of fury small animal hidden in the rocks up front in the lower right corner.  We tossed ideas around of various animals, weasel, ferret, wolverine, marmot, wood chuck and so on.  Then he came up with the idea of a wolf.  I suggested not up front being too large an animal there, but in the back ground, hidden in the trees.  So now I've got an Elk and a Wolf.  Having the Wolf will add a bit of tension and excitement to my painting's Narrative.  But I still need a small animal in front.  So after pondering about it, I came up with a Female Grouse and a nest of eggs.

Research Time

    Now that I know who, what and where it is time to do research into those areas. 

•  Knowledge about the subject: history, location, structure, anatomy and so on

        I started by doing more research on Elk, Wolves and Grouse.  Also I did research into the habitat of these various animals and the Uintas.

•  Plein Air

        I went out a couple of times to do some plein air paintings for this painting.  The first day I got chased away by a lightning storm ( I didn't want to get struck by lightning in the middle of an empty meadow).  Then on a second day I just couldn't find a place that had what I was needing.  So I'll just use some of my old plein air paintings as reference.

•  Reference photos, both on site and internet

        While out getting chased by lightning I took plenty of pictures.  Also I spent a few hours on Google doing image searches.  These I just use as rough references.  I don't copy any of them.

•  Early sketches

        Once I know roughly what I want, I start doing sketches to work out many of the problems of size and arrangement of the various elements of the painting.

The are sketches from an earlier post

Couple of oil studies of Elk with different painting techniques

• What size

    Well I knew I want to go bigger then what I usually go with, because this was going to help this sick little boy.  Bigger is better.  After spending time looking at canvas of various sizes I first decided on the standard size of 22 inches high by 28 inches wide.  But as I thought about it maybe bigger was better.  So now I'm going with 30 by 40 inches.

• What am I going to paint it on

    At first I wanted to painting this on a board.  Either canvas board or Hard board with 4 - 5 coats of Acrylic Gesso.  But I didn't have anything of the sizes I was looking to paint on laying around the studio.  So I went out to see what various art and craft stores in the area had in stock.  But no had what I was looking for in boards.  So I went with a canvas instead.  Plus a canvas at that size (30 x 40) will be much lighter.

• Time of day

    Evening, magic hour.  A time of warm light and cool long shadows.

• Direction of the lighting

    Right to left with the sun way off of the canvas to the right.

• What will be the narrative of the painting

    I'm still not completely sure of this.  But it is taking on a life of it's own as I place the various animals and elements in the painting.  For me personally the Elk represents a feeling of grandeur and noble strength.  The Wolf hiding in the shadows of the trees, darkness and ill intent.  The Mother Grouse sitting on her eggs, innocents and motherly protection.

• What over all feeling am I looking for

    I'm just going to see where this one takes me.

• What two main colors will be represented in the painting

    Yellow-Orange / Violet.

Meditation / letting all this information just sit and Stew

Hours spent just sitting and/or laying on my back thinking about and visualizing all the various elements of the painting.  This is the goal setting part of the painting.  If I don't know where I'm going how will I get there or know when I've arrived.

Once all this is done and I've rough the painting in I'm finally onto the next stage, Inking.

Spring Lake Smiling Barn

    I enjoyed painting the Saunder's old barn so much that I decided to go and paint it again.  On Saturday, late in the morning I headed out.  This time I set up across the road to the west in the grass next to the fence.  It was a clear sunny, warm spring day.  After I had just started working.  I heard someone ride up slowly on what sounded like a four-wheeler.  I had my back to the road so I couldn't see who it was.  I had just drawn in the large shapes in Indian Yellow, when they approached.  It was the older brother of the guy I talk to the last time I was out there painting.  He had one of his young daughters with him.  After asking me how much, he basically bought it there on the spot, without having not seen it completed.  He told me to bring it by his house when I was finished with it.  Which is what I did.  He loved it.  He told me that the barn is called by the locals, the "Smiling Barn".  Which you can see in the painting of the barn.  In fact when I was working on the painting.  I got to the part of painting where a long board sticks out just under the windows.  I thought to myself that it looked like the barn was smiling at me. 

    While I was out painting the Jersey Cows on the other side of the fence, a little ways off decided to nonchalantly come over and check me out and what I was doing.  Then once they had all gathered on some unknown signal to me they all at once stopped eating and just stared at me.  Just as quickly as they came they moved on.  Soon the horses decided that the cows were up to something and they didn't want to be left out.  Also casually made their way over.  Once again stared and then moved on.  While the cows were there I got out my camera and took some picture of them. So I could put them in the painting later back at the studio, which as you can see I've done.  Now that it is scanned I'll take it back to the new owners of it.

    One of the things I learned from this plein air painting trip was that I need more business cards and brochures.  So that people who stop by can instantly see my work.  I've also created a QR symbol that will be going on all my printed stuff too.  I had several people stop and look from their cars.  One lady stopped by and talked with me for a bit about what I was painting.  Which I enjoyed. 

12 x 16 oil on board "Spring Lake Smiling Barn"

Stage Fright and Plein Air

Sometimes just going out and doing Plein Air paintings can be so nervous for me.  Because here I am painting out in public, in front of the whole world, well at least a small part of it.  Every time just before I start I get a kind of stage fright.  Butterflies and tingly fingers.  The adrenalin really starts to get flowing through me.  This is both good and bad.  The adrenalin gets me to push through my fears and go a head and paint, but it also makes me shake.  So once I'm set up and painting I have to take a couple of seconds and take a few deep breaths to settle myself.  Then I stare at the scene in front of me, make a few decisive decisions and then paint, letting it all just flow.

12 x 16 "Horses and Bairs" Oil on Board

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.