The e-ramblings of Artist S.J. Grogan

Well, here it is mid-February and this is my first post of the year. The good news is that THIS YEAR, I'm (really) getting fully organized, more business-like, and have strictly scheduled studio time (with posted hours) so I'm getting more and better paintings done. The bad news is . . . that I'm getting organized, business-like, blah, blah blah. But that's only bad news for me when my inner artist starts whining that she'd rather do something else than what my professional artist side says needs to be done. But it's still good news for my galleries and collectors as you'll be seeing a lot of new work that I'm very excited about.

So on that note, on schedule for this year is (are?) hardcopy newsletters with pretty pictures, quarterly (if you want one snail-mailed, send me your address); email newsletters every other month with the latest haps and some special collector offers (or wannabe collector offers, if you not a collector quite yet); along with my doing new venues for shows and exhibitions. So this year is going to be busy, like the first six weeks haven't been.

Now, Onto A Painting in 5 Steps

Since I have been busy painting, (and will continue to be; I've got a ton of paintings planned), here's what came into existence on my easel, in a step-by-step process. Note: I don't usually document my works-in-progress, so forgive the jumps. In the future, I'll do better grabbing the camera and taking incremental shots so people can see how an image develops since so many have asked.

While some artists do really beautiful detailed layouts on paper, transfer them perfectly onto the canvas and take a very ordered and orderly approach, I don't. What I did in prep for this image was tape about two dozen of my redrock photos to my shelves and wall for inspiration, thought out and mentally worked through a couple design points, made notes in my studio log, then went at it.

First Step: Rough Layout

Yup, this is my layout. I set up my palette and block in the major shapes with an alizarin crimson-ultramarine blue mixture (looks purple-black until white gets added; it's an awesome working color). In landscapes, I always start with the sky to develop a tone, which was late afternoon in this image.

(For the record, I only use six tubes of colors plus Titanium white in my palette. Every color not yellow, blue, or red, is mixed. I love it as it gives a unified look to the color range while opening up a whole new world of options for mixing. The master artist who taught me this method said that Rembrandt used basically this palette, which I find very cool to be using Rembrandt's tricks.)

Background: Redrocks

Now I've roughed in the redrocks (no pun intended), and am working on developing the color range.  I've added a little bit of foliage to the right for balance, which is snaking down into the foreground to delineate the bottom of the scene.

For me, the painting still feels like I'm mixing ingredients for a cake: nothing is baked yet and it sure doesn't look like what I have in mind for the finished product. But I continue on. (FYI: You can see my palette here, with more than the base seven piles of paint as I pre-mix four additional piles of orange, brown, purple, and black (which is really alizarin crimson and french blue). Plus two piles of white, and two piles of liquin to thin the paint. My palette fills up fast.)

Middleground and Foreground: Buttes, Earth and Junipers

Here I've added more detail to the cliffs and spires of redrock, edged down to include the bases of the monoliths, but then jumped ahead to put bushes and plants in the extreme foreground.

I used to work strictly alla prima (= "all at once," which is working on an area until it's done, then moving on to the next section. It gives the effect of having parts of the painting completely finished while other parts still show white canvas). I've modified that technique over the years so it's now a combination of roughing in blocks of color and adding detail later, and finishing an area that I am focused on. Hence the white middleground that honestly, I just didn't feel like working on right then.

Canvas Almost Covered

Okay, so I finally admitted to myself that I needed to get paint on most of the canvas. I worked the middleground, playing and having fun with the looming shadows, adding in the surprising outcroppings of red-rock and dotted bushes that contrasted against the soil.

Around this time, I decided I needed to do something more with the sky that was no longer working with the rest of the painting. I opted to add more of a lavender tone to the upper part, and blend into the lower late afternoon sun-glow above the horizon.

Canvas 99% (maybe 100%) Done--Redrock Afternoon

And here is the (close-to) final painting. You can see more spots of sunlight on the foreground bushes, and of course the greater range of color in the sky which gave it a later afternoon feel that I like better.

This painting is still wet, and may undergo a few more tweaks before I final-varnish it. It is now residing on my drying shelf (up nice and high so my studio-mates--aka, my cats--don't decide to customize a wet painting). The title might also change, as I just stood back and had "Redrock Afternoon" pop into my head. So it's not set in stone by any means.

And that's a painting in 5 very large steps. If you have any suggestions for a better title, feel free to post a comment as I always welcome feedback. And this image is 24" x 30", and will be available through either my galleries: The Gallery in Whittier, CA, or Hear2Heal, in Phelan, CA. See the "Galleries" tab on my website for further information.

Don't forget to "like" this on Facebook--and "like" S.J.W. Grogan if you haven't already--and stayed tuned for more in-process paintings.

As always, have an Art-full day!