Original Art, Prints and Cards
The wolf is too visible in the Redo stage 4, my last post. I want him to blend into the landscape like a shadow, camouflaged the way they actually appear in nature. So I repainted the water behind the wolf figure, darkening it with lots of small dots until the animal blended into the landscape, [...]
. Here is the re-worked painting with the new wolf image. The mountains and sky have been grayed back, the water behind the wolf lightened to silhouette the animal. I’m going to wait a few days and digest these changes before I declare the painting finished. I’ll turn it upside down and evaluate how the [...]
After painting a lot of dots in the background, I concentrated on painting the new wolf image. At this point I am fairly satisfied, but decided that I needed to tone down and grey back the distant mountains and the sky. So I spent most of the day refining the entire painting so that it [...]
After searching through my “Wolf” files I selected another photo to use. I’ve been photographing the wolves of Denali National Park for more than a decade and have lots of good reference material from which to choose. Next, I sketched the outline of the new wolf on the white painted spot and began to add [...]
I’ve been looking at this “finished” painting for a few weeks, now that the hectic holidays are over and the stress level is lowered, and I realize that I’m not satisfied. I’ve decided to take out the little wolf and paint a larger one. The wolf is too small for the landscape, and I really [...]
“East Fork Wolf” 15″ x 30″ acrylic on canvas. A little more work refining the background mountains, adding more light and shadow, touching up the highlights on the water, toning down the middle ridge on the left and punching up the foreground with some dark hues, when I stepped back to take a look from [...]
More dots of warm yellow orange and acra violet are applied to the distant peaks and the sun drenched ridge along the river, and warm colored dots highlight some of the gravel bars in the middle ground. I’ve worked on the composition a bit striving to eliminate the strong diagonal pull from lower right to [...]
At this stage I’m adding color to the middle ground hills, at first it seemed enough, but I’m going to enhance the color even more to show the glow of the evening setting sun. I’ve begun to add detail to the foreground rocks and foliage, and I’m roughing in the base color and shape of [...]
I’ve begun work on the middle ground, defining color and shape of the hills and establishing highlights and dark values in the gravel bars. The distant river gravel is in the shade, this is a painting about fleeting light and shadow. Some areas are highlighted as the sun shines through openings in the clouds, others [...]
As the painting progresses the dots become more and more dense, and multi-colored. The foreground gravel has more dots of lavender, purple, and blue violet, as I work my way toward the top of the canvas I’m adding many more hues and shades of similar values to the water and gravel bars. The object is [...]
I’ve changed the direction of the diagonal lines in the lower third of the painting and began to add mid value dots. I’m still focusing only on the lower part of the painting, only a single value of dots has been applied to the green ridges in the top third. Everything is subject to major [...]
At this stage I’m continuing to add dark colored dots to the lower half of the painting, the bushes near the bottom have not been painted and will be completed during final details just before the finish. The same is true for the wolf figure. I’m establishing the patterns of the darkest shapes in the [...]
After studying the rough wash underpainting I made the decision to reduce the size of the wolf image, it seemed too big and dominated the landscape. I want it to blend in and be hard to discern in the finished work. At this stage I’ve begun to layer the darkest value dots along the lower [...]
I’ve studied the research material from my Artist-in-Residence in Denali National Park last summmer and two ideas surface repeatedly, one is the view from the John Murie cabin of the East Fork River and the other is a view of Denali from the McKinley Bar Trail. I’ve chosen to begin with a painting of the [...]
Gail Niebrugge (Knee-brew-ghe) born and raised in California has pursued art since childhood, winning a poster contest on the Johnny Jet television show at the age of twelve. Gail began her career as an illustrator for the US Navy and Marines in San Diego, and later established the Instructional Media Center for the Grossmont High School District in La Mesa, California. The Niebrugge family fell in love with Alaska while on vacation in 1976 and never returned home, instead they established a residence and studio in the remote interior settlement of Copper Center where the artist painted … [Read More...]
Wikipedia defines pointillism as; "a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colors create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colors." It goes on to say that the mind and the eye mix the color spots into a full range of tones and that it is closely related to Divisionism. Divisionism was practiced by Georges Seurat during the Neo-Impressionism period. He broke his color into basic elements and painted very small and regular dots. His dots are carefully placed as to not touch each other, so the white under painted canvas shows around all of the dots. I call my painting technique pointillism, but technically it is incorrect according to Wikipedia. The difference between my technique and true pointillism is that I use … [Read More...]