The Creation of the Wolf Hill Forest Preserve Painting: Part 1
Let’s start with the design, which is the blueprint for the painting.
The chosen design captures the essence of the Preserve. It’s not a particular spot or view that you will find at Wolf Hill, because I assembled every piece of this design from scratch based on the photo’s that I took when I visited.
In this design the sunlit trail runs uphill through the center of the scene and is framed on each side by the teal colored rocks. Running along the path at center right is a stone wall, and just beyond that is the leaf covered landscape. In the distance is a soft, almost faint canopy of leaves with the gentle silhouette of rocks and trees. It’s a magical scene that makes you feel like you are on the trail.
The design is carefully composed to lead the viewer’s eye into the painting. Not being able to see where the path goes once it turns the corner is sort of a metaphor for life; we don’t know what’s ahead, but we trust and walk in faith, and we feel safe in the filtered light of this rocky path.
This picture shows roughly what the painting will look like when it is placed in your frame and hung above your couch:
Generally people will look for a frame to fit a painting, but in this case, you asked for the painting to fit this frame. In order to fit this frame properly, the painting must be 23″ in height by 41″ in width. That is an unusual size, and finding the right substrate for it would be difficult.
My plan was to use a birch or poplar wood panel for the painting, but finding one in that size is almost impossible. So I checked with our friend the woodworking specialist. He advised me not to use that type of wood at that size because it would be likely to warp over time. He suggested a high grade plywood that’s often used in cabinet making. I considered that option but in the end decided that plywood would not suitable for this p. Plywood is heavy, it contains formaldehyde, and its longevity is questionable.
My next thought was to stretch my own canvas. The problem with that is that they don’t make stretcher bars in lengths of 23″ or 41″, or at least they’re not sold in Providence. I looked into having them custom made by a company in Washington state, but they said that they couldn’t get them to me until the end of February, which is way too long.
The only other option is to mount canvas to a substrate, but what is the best substrate for the job? Wood is out because it’s not archival. That leaves plastic, aluminum, or maybe metal. I chose a thick piece of plexiglass. I’ve never used it before but I have no doubt that it will work as intended. So I laid it on my work table, measured out a 23″ x 41″ rectangle, and began scoring it in the belief that I could score and snap it:
But you can’t score and snap thick plexiglass – or at least I couldn’t with the tools I had – so I brought it outside and cut it with a skill saw. After sanding the edges and giving it a good cleaning, it was time to mount the canvas. I used an archival PVA glue:
I mounted a piece of Fredrix heavyweight canvas to the plexiglass and carefully smoothed out any air bubbles or thick pockets of glue. It adhered perfectly! The canvas is nice and smooth, the substrate is both strong and lightweight, and it’s all archival – it will last a really really long time:
On January 31st, I moved the mounted canvas to my easel. What you are looking at here is your painting – it’s just going to require some assembly:
The first step in any Studio painting is to “stain” the canvas. You brush on a thin coat of a suitable color and then wipe it all off with a rag. There are many reasons why this must be done. I do it because it will have an effect on how the painting appears later. Oil paint is not opaque; Light will pass through the layers, hit the white and bounce back at the viewer. So the stained canvas will have a subtle effect on the finished work.
This is the orange stained canvas. It’s been on my easel since Monday morning.
Once the stained canvas is nice and dry, the next step is to do a quick sketch of the design in charcoal. My focus is on the large rocks in the foreground and mid-ground, because they anchor everything else. Once I’m satisfied that things are roughly the right size and shape, and in the right place, then it’s time to start the underpainting.
Traditional underpainting is done with one color. I often use burnt sienna, as I am in this painting. The purpose of underpainting is to develop the composition – where things go – and to determine the values, which are the lights and darks. A good underpainting is like laying a foundation; you build on it, and it will enhance the way the painting appears later.
Here is the very beginning of the underpainting:
This next picture was taken this morning, February 12th. It shows the progression of the underpainting as things begin to take shape. It’s a little difficult to paint such a busy scene with only one color, so you just try to do the best you can. In painting success is measured in increments. It’s like in football – the key is to move the ball. It doesn’t matter if you move forward an inch, a yard, or 50 yards, as long as you are moving forward you are winning.
You’ll notice in the above picture that I only painted the foreground and mid-ground. If I had continued and painted the trees in the background with the burnt sienna, that would make painting the sky a problem in the next layer because I would have to either paint the sky around them or in a light coat over them. Neither of those options were attractive to me. I want the sky to be smooth and clean, with all the trees and leaves in front of it. So I stopped the burnt sienna underpainting short of the background and began the next layer, which is the grisaille, or gray layer.
In this layer I will paint the whole scene again, but this time I will only use a mixture of Titanium White and Payne’s Gray. I started by painting the sky, which instantly turned the scene into a Martian landscape…
Next I painted some white highlights on where I thought some of the rocks would be.
Then I began painting the gray from left to right. The reason why I’m working left to right is because I’m right handed and I don’t to rest my palm in the wet color.
At this point I’m still trying to figure out where everything goes, so this is a slow process. The gray layer was painted over several days.
In this next picture, taken this morning, the gray layer is complete. While everything still looks very crude, the scene actually is starting to take shape. I’m feeling confident about the direction of the painting.
One week ago today, on February 19th, I began work on the first color layer. I started with a simple blue sky, then worked my way down, moving mostly left to right. I’m using a limited palette and I’m not trying to capture every detail at this point. My goal for this first color layer is to warm things up with a little bit of color, continue to figure out where things go, and determine what is the best technique for painting these textured rocks.
In this picture you can see the difference between the areas that are in color and those that are still in gray:
As you can see in this next picture, I finished the first color layer on Sunday, February 27th. Then I drew some of the trees in the foreground and mid-ground and began to paint them into the scene:
The addition of some of the trees – even though they’re crudely painted at this point – changes the whole dynamic of the painting:
As you can see in the above picture, the first color layer is complete for the rocks and leaves in the foreground and mid-ground. I decided not to work on the leaves and trees in the background and instead began the second color layer while the rocks and leaves are still fresh in my mind. Since leaves are more tedious to paint than rocks, I decided to paint them first. There’s a lot of them, and each shape must be painted individually.
If you toggle between this next picture and the previous one, you can see what a big difference the leaves make:
After painting the leaves, I started painting the second color layer on the rocks and green moss. I finished almost all of them, except for the rocks in the mid-ground on the right. I didn’t paint those because I might want to change them for a whole different set of rocks – ones that lead the viewer’s eye towards the center of the painting and not off to the side. In my recent text I mentioned returning to the trail to take a few more pictures, and that’s what I need pictures of – other rocks.
If you toggle between this next picture and the previous one, you can see what a big difference the newly painted rocks make:
Next it was time to start painting the trees and the leaves in the background. This has to be done slowly and carefully because I want to add just enough leaves without adding too many. It’s important that the previously painted blue sky shows through the leaves.
I started work on the background by adding little dots of colors in various spots around the canvas. My goal here is to figure out where the leaves go. I also painted a faint wash of trees on the horizon:
Then I began working from left to right. Here you can see that the yellow leaves and trees on the far left are a now a little more detailed.
My plan was to work from left to right so that my palm wouldn’t accidently rest in any wet paint, but instead I started skipping around in an effort to balance the color and composition everywhere all at once.
The colors in all of these pictures are a little washed from the studio lights reflecting the shiny oil medium in the paint, but you can see how it’s coming to life:
The longer that you work on an oil painting, the more medium – or oil – you have to add to the paint. The reason for this is because if the top layer dries quicker than the layers underneath, the painting will crack over time, and we definitely don’t want that to happen. You’ve probably seen an old oil painting that was all full of tiny cracks. That’s exactly what it looks like when a painting wasn’t executed properly.
The reason I mention this is because I’ve been adding more and more oil to my palette, and it makes it hard to get a good picture of the painting. The studio lights are bouncing off the still wet oil medium, so as you will see in the next picture, some areas of the painting look shiny and washed.
This past week I painted the seven trees in the mid ground on the right, and the four dark trees in the center of the background. I also began adding an additional layer of color to the yellow leaves on the left, which will increase both their opacity and the vibrancy. This week I will continue adding more color, more leaves, and a few more trees to the background.
This next picture was taken this morning, but it doesn’t come close to capturing the beauty of the painting in person. Even so, you can see the progress:
And finally: I know this painting is taking forever and I appreciate your patience! It’s because the level of detail in this painting is through the roof, and there are no shortcuts. So I just keep inching along at a snails pace, making progress every day. It’s like driving in the Washington Beltway, but more enjoyable, and a lot less swearing….
Sunday, April 10th: Next is a picture that I took this morning. This past week I added more trees and leaves to the background, and I recoated some of the brighter colors to make them even more vibrant. It’s hard to get a good picture of the painting from inside the studio because the lights are washing out the colors. In person, though, the painting is alive with color!
As for what’s left to do in the painting: I need to add some more leaves to the background in a few spots, and the rocks in the midground center right were never painted. I was thinking of switching them to some other rocks or rock formation, but I haven’t been back to the trail yet to take pictures. Once those rocks and a few more leaves are done, that’s basically it. Then I just have to wait a few days for everything to dry so that I can coat the painting with retouch varnish.
I think it will be just two more weeks before the painting is ready for delivery.
Monday, April 25th: This is the latest picture. Since my last post I changed the rocks in the center mid-ground on the right. I also added more color to the leaves in the background, a few more rocks to the path, some branches, etc. The only thing that I have yet to do is sign the piece, which I will probably do this morning. After that the piece will be finished.
Over the years people have often asked me “How do you know when a painting is done?”. I always tell them “When I’m not sure if the next brush stroke will help of hurt the painting”.
Friday, May 6th: A thin layer of re-touch varnish was applied to the painting last Saturday. Now that the varnish is fully dry, the painting is back on the easel, awaiting delivery.
Thanks!
C.