******"State Of The Art" ****** Chateau Dumas Giveaway 2011

When I see a finished painting I’m often mystified as to how the artist got there so I was delighted when painter Joan Lawson sent me these stage by stage shots of her “Walk to the Chateau” painting.

Joan is teaching two painting classes at Chateau Dumas this September and I can’t wait! Maybe you’d like to win a place in our Chateau Giveaway? Thanks again to Chrissie for inviting Joan to reveal her painting methods here.

This sketch gives me the basic composition as well as the tonal structure. Interesting to work out the perspective of the building in the background. I like the slow lazy approach in this image, you don't want to enter the painting too quickly! I love working in red pastel pencil on this rough paper.

I washed raw sienna over the entire canvas and began to block in loosely. Not sure about the blue/pink sky though. Keeping the colour strong in the foreground and soft in the distance, but I'll need to think about placing the warm/cold blues to enhance the distance.

Blocking in a little more solidly now, I'll keep the colder greeney blues to the distance, and put the warmer ultramarines and purples to the foreground. I definitely prefer the yellow sky! I must keep the distant trees soft...

I just need to strengthen and darken the foreground with some lovely reds, and put foliage on the tree to the left. It helps me to think of the muddle of foliage on the right as overlapping flat shapes, like flats on a stage set.


Thanks, Joan, you make it sound so easy!


Lizzie


Like to win a place on Joan’s Painting workshop?
See http://www.chateaudumas.net/ for details of the courses ( sorry 18-25 September is full). Please leave your prefered cousre in the comment box of the blog to enter the giveaway – the winner’s name will be announced on 1 April on the original blog post  here http://bit.ly/hDCR2S .