Sketchbook

Heart Land of America: A Mid-West Landscape

Collection of Harry Kuper Jr.

Step 1: I laid out the drawing and dropped in some paint for the sky. For my reference I am using a photograph taken in Clinton County Illinois.  Joe loves to take photographs for me and he captured some very beautiful midwest scenes while we visited my family. For the drawing I break up the photograph by drawing the lines vertically, horizontally and diagonally.

Step 2: I applied friskett, using a toothpick, to the areas Where I wanted to preserve the white of the paper.

Step 3: I did my main washes and worked on the sky a bit more. I threw color on the fields and worked around the painting.

Step 4: I added the tree line, worked on the sky, the foreground and the fields in the middle.

Step 5: Finally I added the house and barn details, adjusted the values and added the foreground before removing the frisket of the tall grass.

This painting is the first in a series of the midwest.

Spring Follows Winter

This painting was not up for very long on deviantArt before I closed that account so I thought I would add it here. This was started and finished in 8 hours for a charity event. Art 4 Art’s Sake is a yearly event that hosts artists for a day so they can create a painting that is then auctioned off at the end of the night. The public is available to view the process for the two hours before the auction and talk with the artists. All the proceeds go to the non-profit gallery in Dixon, IL, The Next Picture Show.  My painting sold for $345.

Note: This was originally posted 5/10/09 on the blog at blog.limitedpalette.com.

This is a close up of my favorite part of the daffodil painting.