Steve Fleming

Artist Studio

Steve Fleming

In The Studio: Just Paint 16 “Summer Cows”

The Artist In The Studio

This painting started off simple enough and then became a major slog.  I found it really hard to stay with it the colors were not behaving and everything that usually comes pretty easy was a fight.  But I kept going and I think it turned out pretty well.  The cows were my reason for painting this I am working really hard on being able to put them into a painting without a whole lot of stress and fussiness.  I think these worked.  Lesson is keep going in the painting, if you have an idea then see it through to the end.  You will achieve very little by giving up and starting over every time the painting gets stuck in the mud.

Start with a pretty nice blue mixture for the sky I used my favorites cobalt blue and cerulean blue although I added a little bit of ultramarine blue at the very top for a little variety.  I moved immediately to the trees brushing in yellows and blues the achieve a green and then dropped in some cadmium red and transparent orange for the warm trees.  Try to let the colors merge on the paper and try not to brush all of the colors together it will get muddy.The foreground is every color I used for the trees but they were applied in a very rough and linear way.  I then splattered greenish brown in the right foreground.  After the trees began to dry I scraped out some tree branches with a sharp knife.

I added a little more texture to the foreground and painted in the tree limbs, making sure to keep these details middle value.  If they are too dark they will eat the trees.Cows are painted with the side of a small round brush with very little water so I can control the application of paint.  The color is burnt sienna, cadmium red and ultramarine blue.  Think loose with the cows they are not bill boards in the field, a little texture and they move.

Details for weeds in the foreground and it is done.  My that was simple and really hard a major dichotomy.

2 Comments on “In The Studio: Just Paint 16 “Summer Cows””

  1. I like the white behind the heads of cows, it makes that they call attention. It makes them important

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