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It seems like ages since I’ve painted but I’m back to the easel again and I finally finished the acrylic painting “Skating Outdoors”!  Yahoo!  After changing the color of the boy’s jacket three times, I’m satisfied with dark green. The finish detail included adding more definition to the trees in the background, punching up the darks and lights on the foreground trees, softening the shading on the distant mountains, lightening the cast shadow of the skaters, and defining detail on the figures. This strikes me as a sweet little painting, nostalgic, depicting a moment in time in a beautiful place.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Landscape art

It is humiliating and humbling to publish the progress of a painting and during the process completely mess it up! I could have just skipped photographing this phase and no one would be the wiser, but I think it is a good lesson.  Painters often go too far, and don’t know when to stop! I thought the ice was too blue and blended into the shadows on the snow (look at previous post). The figures are in the sun and the ice looked like it was in the shade. So, in my infinite wisdom, I began to warm up the color of the ice. What I have now is people skating on dirt! Today I’ll spend all day changing the color of the dots to resemble ice with sunlight. During my non-stop painting frenzy, I became frustrated with the yellow color of the boy’s jacket, and at the last-minute changed it to dark blue. I’m going to have to think about this for awhile, but I will have plenty of time because re-painting the ice will take quite a few hours. The reason all of this happened is that I didn’t take the time to step away from the painting and evaluate changes as I made them, it probably looked good at some point but I just kept on painting like someone in a trance, dot a dot a dot, dot dot dot, and raced over a cliff.  Sob, sob, the beauty of opaque paint is that it will cover what is underneath, if that is any consolation
More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, frustrated artist

Leaving the figures in their original “roughed in” state, I concentrated on darkening the color of the sky to emphasize the sunlit peaks in the background.  I’m also darkening the ice, but now it is a little too dotty and doesn’t look smooth. The kids look like they are skating on gravel.  To create a smooth look I’ve got to lay in a lot of dots of the same value.  This is a challenge, the figures are sunlit but the ice is the same color of the snow shadows in the background. Hmm, this needs some thought.  Lots to do, the end is not in sight.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Landscape artist

It is hard to keep my momentum going on this painting because I’ve had so many other commitments to deal with. I work best when I can block out a period of time of one or two weeks, and paint every day. This is a busy time of year and I paint whenever there is a free day, sometimes more than a week will pass without time at the easel. Nevertheless I’m making progress. The figures are still only “roughed in” to determine color and value. As I observe the frozen lake outside my studio I realize that the ice is much darker than snow, it is partly transparent and influenced by the dark color of the lake bottom. So, I begin to add darker colored dots to the ice and as I continue some will be even darker. I am also going to darken the sky to make the mountains really stand out.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Painting Winter Alaska

The above photo shows that I’ve loosely defined the clothing on the figures, and began to add pointillism, one dot at a time, to the sky and the foreground.

Here I’ve added more pointillism to the foreground ice, some on the snow in the tree shadows, and I’m adding more definition to the distant mountains. I’ve softened the tree line on the mountains and defined some of the ridges. These changes are very subtle at this point, but essential.
More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Landscape Painting

Now the colors in the painting have all been roughly blocked in. Rough, very rough, but now I can see where I’m going. I chose colors for the figures that would compliment the colors in the landscape. My next move will be to define more carefully the shapes of the snow on the trees, and the clothing on the figures. Then I will begin adding pointillism on the foreground and in the sky. This painting is a lot of fun and very nostalgic. I used reference material from my previous yard in Palmer, Alaska, and skaters in the wilderness on the Chitina River many years ago. Searching through my files of reference material before I begin a painting really brings back memories.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska artist

A quick application of highlights to the snow on the trees and the foreground snow establishes the values throughout the landscape. I’m still using a flat application of paint at this stage. The pointillism technique will happen as I’m developing detail. My next step is to select colors and paint the two figures in the center.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Paintings

At this stage of the painting I begin to add the tree line along the distant mountain peaks paying careful attention to light and shadow.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Landscape Painter

At this stage of the painting I begin to establish the dark and light (shadows and sunlight) areas of the trees. These trees are heavily laden with snow and the time of day is late afternoon, the source of light is from the right and the angle of the sun is low. This lighting condition gives a strong pattern of light and shadow, with a rosy glow, and has all of the elements that will make the scene colorful and interesting. I haven’t under-painted the figures or the ice in the foreground yet because I want to establish the colors of the surrounding scenery, then choose clothing colors that will be compatible with the environment, yet add interest. What I do know at this point is that the figures will cast long shadows and be lit on their right sides.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Landscape painting

After laying in solid color in most of the top two-thirds of the painting I begin to add a few dots. I do this to primarily to help determine values (darks, lights, and mid-tones), the colors of the dots will change many times over the course of the painting, but once the values are established they should stay the same regardless of color.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Landscape Artist

For this painting I’ve changed my approach and blocked in areas of color without using pointillism. Each painting is unique and I do not follow a formula for how to begin. This time I’m using a stretched canvas with only a light coating of Gesso primer, leaving the texture of the canvas quite pronounced. I need a smoother surface for the pointillism technique, so instead of layering many coats of primer as a base and sanding in between, I will use the first layer of paint as a primer to fill in some of the texture of the weave. It works o.k., not great but not bad. Eventually as I paint the first of many layers of dots the surface will shape up for what I need for the finish details. I really don’t get hung up on having everything “just right”, I’m more interested in getting into the painting and solving color problems. I will roughly follow the pencil sketch underneath but not be a slave to it, I will use it merely as reference.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist