My interests in art differs somewhat from that of my wife and usually I am not really willing to paint her suggestions. She recently asked me to paint the painting below. I tried it and the outcome is not too bad. I tried to follow a heavy impressionistic approach and incorporated my recent cloud painting experience when painting the sky.
The painting was made using Winsor&Newton Winton oils on canvas board. The dimensions are about 40x60cm.
We are back in Abu Dhabi and are reflecting on our Georgian holiday. One of the things that stand out for me is Mount Kazbegi. As the highest peak in the Caucasians, it stands as a guardian over the town Stapandsminda. Having grown up in the mountains of the Western Cape in South Africa, I am fascinated by high mountains and that is probably why this peak has such a hold on me.
On our last evening at Stepandsminda we visited the Rooms Hotel, Kazbegi for a final round of their awesome brownies and apple pie. The clouds were rolling in and it was cold enough to sit under blankets out on the hotel’s deck. While sitting there I took an amazing photograph of the setting sun playing with the clouds around Mount Kazbegi. I used that photograph as the basis for this digital painting.
Please note that all paintings are performed freehand. I do not trace any pictures.
I really admire the work of Mark Boedges, an American painter who does much of his painting in plein air. His use of shadows and contrast is truly remarkable and he frequently includes very realistic rocks into his paintings with the rocks contributing heavily towards the overall temperature of the painting.
In an attempt to develop my own style, I started to copy Mark Boedges’ work (especially his rocks) on the iPad Pro in ProCreate. The painting below is a much older painting than the ones I recently completed and published on this blog, but I think it is worth sharing as a step in my growth process. Since doing this painting I have started to follow a limited palette strategy with palettes consisting of 9-value greyscale (value) compositions. I think I should once again copy one of his paintings using the new limited palette approach.
A screen capture of some of the ProCreate palettes is presented below.
The digital painting (which I call “River rocks”) is presented below.
One of the many monasteries overlooking the Kazbegi mountains is located on the slope of the mountain overlooking Stepandsminda and also has a spectacular view on Mount Kazbegi. I took a panoramic photo from the pastures above the monastery and used that as the reference for a painting.
For this painting I started with cool greys (blue greys) and then added neutral greys and greens to it. This is the first didtal painting of the Kazbegi region that I am really satisfied with. I am starting to develop huge respect for those painters who manage to capture nature in plein air.
After my initial attempts using colour, I tried to “paint” the Kazbegi mountians using a greyscale foundation. It is still not the result I am looking for, but closer. For this digital painting I put down a warm grey foundation painting and then touched it up with colour and cold greys. I think Imshould have rather started with cool greys. It was a plain air approach with some touch-ups at home. I am not satisfied with the depth in the painting.
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