Master Copy | Landscape | Tula Telfair

(upper) Tula Telfair's original, (lower) my copy

A bit after the fact, but here is my final for landscape painting this past fall semester, a master copy of a Tula Telfair painting. When I went through the list of master painters we could choose from, Tula Telfair stuck out the most to me immediately. Color! So vivid, it reminded me of how saturated I like color sometimes. The way she uses it truly is masterful, a brightness but also a quiet to many of her paintings. There is an almost surreal quality that I feel and I believe I react that way based on the color.

Also, the woman can paint some DAMN fine clouds. And this fool needed to learn how to paint clouds.

I had a really great time doing this painting and, even more importantly, feel that I learned a lot from it. It's not exactly like the original (for starters, size... Tula's are like five feet!), but I think it's on the right path. It just needs another ten or twenty some odd hours.

Landscapes

I'm back after my short hiatus over the holiday and my visit to Chicago. It was great to be home for a bit.

Now, without further ado, I have for you on this fine Tuesday... Landscapes!

Week 12 into the semester and I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with landscape painting. There's still much more for me to practice, experiment, and develop, but I'm beginning to enjoy it more each day.

This is a master copy of a painting by Michael Workman. He is a great landscape painter and I really love his compositions and texture. I've found that one of the aspects of oil painting which I enjoy the most is the interesting and various textures that can be made. Sure, texture is in every medium, but I feel it comes more naturally to me with oil and also allows for much more variation in approach. Copying Workman's painting has definitely helped me in switching up compositions in future thumbnails and paintings, as well as think more about shape, texture, and atmospherical perspective.

Here is a study from a field painting at a winery in Sonoma. I like the patterns which were visible from above and also like that the painting has some cartoony, animation-like feeling to the colors and shapes. I still need to go back in with a few layers though, especially since you can still see the pencil lines I put down originally! A bit too thin of application, mayhaps.

Another study from a field painting, this time at Tennessee Valley in Marin County. It was a very foggy day and color were very subdued. Although it got pretty chilly painting so near to the ocean in the morning, I really enjoyed the setting and sweet reference photos I gained from this expedition.

There will be more landscape paintings to come. I'm thinking now about doing some of my thesis illustrations as landscapes.

More to come Thursday!

Landscape In Progress

Today (and the past week or so) I've been working on this landscape for class. Still feeling very beginner level to landscape painting, but I'm hoping that with practice and time I'll gain more confidence in painting environments.

I also came across an October drawing challenge of a wonderful Halloween/October-inspired illustration a day! I'm going to try and get started on some fun little character sketches for that, so brace yourselves for witches, black cats, monsters, and the like!

Plein Air Painting in the Chill San Francisco Morn'

For today's Landscape Painting class we went to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco for some plein air painting. No matter what I do or how I try to prepare, SF always gets me with its chilliness. The entire four hours of outdoor painting (minus the last ten minutes--literally--when the sun finally shone through) were quite chilly and we were all trying to stay warm and paint our lil' cold fingers off.

I had a lot of fun, even having to lug all the painting and easel shit around! I'm looking forward to developing my environmental painting skills.... because they sure need some work.

Have  a great weekend, everybody!