Friday, March 16, 2012

From the Studio

An Evening in Early Spring


Donald Jurney, An Evening in Early Spring, 24x30"

Here's a spring painting that hopes to catch the moment when day surrenders to night. One can hear the peepers as the light fades, and there is a dampness which is redolent of the scents of the emerging season.

9 comments:

  1. Incredible control of colour variations within the shadow area! Can I ask what paint colours you use for those darks?

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    1. A varying mix of alizarin, ultramarine, viridian, burnt umber, and brownish-madder, all used transparently. Does that help?

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    2. Yes it does thanks for sharing.

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  2. I like this very much, especially the limited highlights

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  3. Great question regarding the darks...thanks for the answer too. Those darks harmonize so delicately well with the warm orange glow of that fading light. Superb!

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  4. Thanks for the suggestion of brownish-madder and viridian. Those are interesting combinations to use. Do you believe that burnt umber is better than raw umber? I love the darkness of it. I am all about testing out my transparent dark areas in the next few weeks using various lighting affects in my landscapes.

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    1. Re burnt umber and rawumber: For me, burnt umber is much clearer in tone. Why not take all those colors I mentioned---alizarin, brownish madder, viridian, burnt umber, ultramarine----and brush them out pure, mixed only with some medium, on a white panel or even white, non-absorbent paper. Look at the jewel tones they can make. Of course, as soon as you mix any of them with another, opaque color, you have a very different item on your hands. For me, generally, raw umber is very dead, even when not in a mixture. It's fine for an underpainting,but I use a mixture of burnt umber and ultramarine for that. 'Twill all become clear during the workshop!!

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    2. Thanks for that suggestion, I will make a chart of those colors and experiment. I also love to do tinted under paintings using raw siena, burnt siena, ultramarine and alizarin mixed gently in combinations in areas according to my planned color temperature of the painting. I did that in my Fall marsh that I did.This process cuts down on the steps in glazing, and allows me to have some of the under painting show through.

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