I love the autumn. We don’t have autumns here in California as I knew growing up in Tennessee. It’s one of the things I miss most: those colors and the crisp snap of the air. Here’s a painting to celebrate it. As I often do, I’m playing with complementary colors a lot in this picture. I used a sponge to help paint the foliage.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

“Autumn Pasture” is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on heavy watercolor paper. It sells for $95+ shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

Here’s a view of the Grand Canyon near sunset. The colors are especially beautiful at this time of the day—the way the blues of the shadows lighten as they move farther away and their contrast with the red-orange of the canyon produces, of course, complimentary colors. The birds riding the thermal updrafts are fascinating to watch.

This painting is based on some photos I took about a year and a half ago. Click on the image for a larger view.

“Grand Canyon Updraft” is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on heavy watercolor paper. It sells for $95+ shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

]]> http://thepaintedroad.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1421 0 http://thepaintedroad.com/blog/?p=1414 http://thepaintedroad.com/blog/?p=1414#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 17:10:30 +0000 JT Morrow http://thepaintedroad.com/blog/?p=1414

Morning on the water. Can you hear the quiet?

This is a continuation of my attempts to paint the sun. Makes you want to get out your fishing pole, doesn’t it?

Click on the images to see the paintings a bit bigger.

“Morning Boat Ride” is an 9.5″ x 13″ acrylic painting on board. It sells for $165 + shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

Here’s another golf course, showing the crest of the hill and birds taking off under a blazing morning sun. I remember liking the way the light and shadows spread over the hillside. The hardest part of this painting was getting the sun to look right. I had to paint it and the rays spreading out from it at least six or seven times.

Click on the images to see the paintings a bit bigger.

“Morning Birds” is an 18″ x 26″ acrylic painting on canvas. It sells for $600 + shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

This is a scene of a golf course near my home. I was driving by one morning and saw the sun shining through the trees. I pulled over, parked and ran back with my camera to snap a few shots. I have to admit there’s something about the designs of most golf courses that is visually pleasing. I like the rolling grounds in this scene and the intense morning sun casting shadows.

There’s a great quote by Picasso: “Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, others transform a yellow spot into the sun.” My sun isn’t yellow but I hope I captured the look and feel of the sun.

Click on the images to see the paintings a bit bigger.

“Morning Sun” is a 12″ x 22″ acrylic painting on canvas. It sells for $350+ shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

This red barn didn’t start out  red. I had taken a photo of the barn that stood across the street from where I grew up in Tennessee. What really caught my eye was the long ladder hanging along much of the side. I had shot it as the sun was falling and it had given the gray barn a yellow hue. That’s the way I started the painting and I almost posted it that way but then I realized there wasn’t enough contrast between the yellowish barn and the yellow-green of the field.

Since the field had a bit of green in it I though it would be wise to change the color of the barn. Red was a natural not only because many barns are red but because red is the complimentary color of green. I glazed cadmium red over the barn and liked the results much better. I also added a few windows because the face of the barn looked too plain.

By the way I used a new technique in which I started the painting by laying down an under-painting of the complimentary colors I planned to paint the final area. In other words the blue sky first had a coat of orange. The green field had an under-painting of red. The yellow barn (even though I changed it later) started off with a hint of purple. The final coat of paint usually has thin areas where some of the under-painting shows through and it tends to give the final painting an extra snap in my opinion.

Click on the images to see the paintings a bit bigger.

“The Red Barn” is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on paper. It sells for $95+ shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

This was inspired by a scene in Japan. I was in Sapporo last December.

I wanted to liven up the grayness of the image so I initially laid down a thin layer of Liquitex’s Acra Violet. It gave the image the feel of dusk as the last of the sun tints the landscape with a pink hue. The color also plays off the green in the trees.

You can view a larger version by clicking on the image above.

“Sapporo Snow” is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on paper. It sells for $95+ shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find us working.” – Pablo Picasso
Boy, have I ever found this to be true. Sometimes an idea pops into my head out of nowhere. But, more often, ideas come out of doing the work. One idea always leads to others but you have to grease the machine and get it running before anything of worth arrives.

This is a picture of the tree in my back yard. I see it everyday but I’m usually not in my studio when the sun comes up. One particular day I was and as soon as I saw the sun break over the horizon I grabbed my camera and began shooting. I exaggerated the colors in the painting but not by much. It was a glorious sunrise.

You can view a larger version by clicking on the image above.

“Backyard Sunrise” is an 11″x14″ acrylic painting on canvas. It sells for $275+ shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

This is loosely based on the famous cypress tree near Carmel, California. I had to put this aside for a while because my first couple of attempts never quite clicked. There were parts of the painting I liked so I kept coming back to it and trying new things.

“Carmel” is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on paper. It sells for $95 + shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.

In Morning Comes I tried to capture that early glow as the sun first strikes the neighborhood. You can feel the earth warming up; hear the birds beginning to sing. Everything looks as if it has that honey tinged glow.

I like the pattern of the fence at the bottom, still in the shadows and bluish. Click on the image to see a larger version.

“Morning Comes” is an 8″ x 10″ acrylic painting on paper. It sells for $95 + shipping. To purchase please click on the “Buy Now” button below.