Golden sunset in real paint

I converted my iPad painting (performed in ProCreate) of the “Golden sunset” to an oil painting over the weekend. I struggled to transfer the original photo to the painting until I turned to the digital iPad painting as reference. I realized that the abstraction into the digital painting was what I needed to be be able to abstract the image into oil. The conversion of complex objects, such as clouds, has always been difficult for me, but the initial digital painting may just be the key. In the digital painting I can try and undo and try again until I get it right, whereas the oil painting is somewhat unforgiving against mistakes.

I also used Winson&Newton’s Liquin in this painting. Liquin is a resin-like oil paint medium that dramatically decreases the setting and drying time of the paint to the point where it behaves like acrylics. I found this to be important to effectively paint the clouds, which are highly dependent on layering.

Overall I worked on the painting in 3 different sessions and, when I stood back with my cup of coffee, the coffee tasted really good!

Another one for my wife

I recently painted another painting for my wife. This is the second largest painting I have even painted (about 120cm by 60cm) and the scale is quite challenging given that my usual paintings are around a rather compact 17cm by 51cm. It is difficult to scale up and still achieve realism. Well, I think it worked. I would have liked a brighter feel to the painting, but I struggled to increase the hue, or lightness/brightness of the work.

Below is the painting. I painted with Windsor and Newton’s Winston oil paints. The bottom image is the reference painting I did on my iPad. It turned out to be a key to getting realism into the foreground and the middle ground (the rocks).

The painting makes me long back to my beloved mountains in the Western Cape in South Africa.

The final oil painting

The reference digital painting.