Saturday

I'm driving to Nevada today to get a Christmas tree. Last week I put in the permit for $4 near Elko. So this afternoon I'll drive to Wendover and stay with an old college friend and tomorrow we will both drive an hour and a half south out in the middle of nowhere to cut down a few trees.  It should be a good adventure.

I decided to try a night painting from Amsterdam, just to try something different from the usual rain soaked streets.

So the size is 34x52 and as you can see the composition was the first thing to be layer in. It will be a view looking down the canal with a bridge crossing and the town lit up behind.

Here I started to block in the sky with color and the buildings to the right with the orange light of evening. for me its much easier to work with larger shapes of color instead of the drawing of forms. Blocking in masses like this will tell me very quickly if the painting is moving along in the right direction or not.

Next the water is filled in with a large brush. So now the canvas is covered over with the approximate color and value that I want for the finished product. From here I can tweak the composition and adjust areas where I want the focus of interest.

This last shot I defined more of the building to the right. At this point I want the oil paint to set up a bit, or else when I put down further strokes the brush will just be removing some of my iniscial block-in color.

More to come next week

Richard Boyer