Mountain View

Mountain View, acrylic 25 x 20 cm

Initial stage

Stage 2

 An imagined view, based on a previous acrylic landscape. Done with a palette knife and three colors plus white.

Reflections in the mountains (acrylic)

Mountain reflections, acrylic, 12" x 9"

Tried the same scene that I did in watercolor before. Ended up doing quite a lot of fiddling as there are more smaller details than in the two previous acrylics and I'm still using mostly a palette knife. Well, acrylic is much more forgiving than watercolor and the goal is to have fun.

Mountain views in acrylic

Rila mountain, acrylic 12" x 9"

Hillside shrubs, acrylic 12" x 9"
(based on Gerald Ashcroft's tutorial)

I want to thank my friend, Dina, for making me sign for a painting workshop last weekend. It was at the McMichael's gallery so we also saw the Tommy Thompson exhibition. That unlocked something in me and I couldn't stop thinking about painting. 

For courage, I went through a tutorial by an Australian artist Gerald Ashcroft, whose loose style attracted me. Following it, I did the second landscape with only four colors and a painting knife. Then I applied the same technique to the top view from the Rila mountains in Bulgaria. Each painting took me about two hours and I truly enjoyed doing them.

Painting Fast

Corfu, watercolor 30 x 23 cm

Maliovitsa, watercolor 30 x 23 cm

The free time over the holidays helped me find some peace of mind for painting. These two are influenced by Roy Simmons' little book on Loose Watercolor, which I found so inspiring, I had to grab the brushes and do some quick paintings. The first one is a view of the city of Corfu from the water. The second is in the Bulgarian Rila mountains. I have painted this view before, with much fussing and fiddling. Now I finished it in about 30 minutes and I like this one much better.

From the sketchbook

A few sketches from Bulgaria.

Tsarevets is a fortified hill where the medieval capital of Bulgaria was located. Not much is left from the buildings and fortifications, but the sight is picturesque nevertheless.

The other two sketches I did very quickly trying to capture a beautiful mountain view, before the rain clouds had gathered.

Tsarevets 1

Tsarevets 2

Iundola

Belmeken

Views from Newfoundland

Lately I have been working with photos from my trips, trying to simplify some landscape scenes. Here are several of them, although, I'm still very far from what I'd like to achieve.

York Harbor, watercolor 38 x 28 cm

Bonne Bay, watercolor 38 x 28 cm

At Norris Point, watercolor 38 x 28 cm

Broom Point, watercolor sketch

Trout River Pond, watercolor 38 x 28 cm

Blanket of Snow 2

Blanket of Snow 2, Arches HP, 28 x 34 cm

This is a second version of a scene that I tried painting more than a year ago. I used the remaining piece of hot-pressed paper, which accounts for the unpleasant spotty effects in the sky. Apart from that, I'm quite happy with the way it turned out - way simpler and looser than the first version and more dimensional too.

The Turkish landscape

I was hesitant to put this title, as I am hardly capable of depicting the beauty of the nature I saw. My first pleasant surprise in Turkey was the beautiful and diverse landscape. For some reason I've allways thought that once crossing the Bosphorus,  you enter the arid desert of the Anatolian plateau. This is so far from the truth. There are luscious green valleys surrounded by high mountains, whose peaks were still covered with snow. It was a delight to watch the lovely pattern of differently colored agricultural fields - some freshly plowed and exposing the orange-reddish soil, while the others ranging  through all shades of green and yellow.

The view was changing too fast from the bus window, so I was trying to capture it with my camera. I must be the owner of the largest number of photos of road-side posts and shrubs. You know how these always manage to get into the frame, while you try to focus on something in the distance.

Here are a few of my attempts to transform those landscapes into watercolors.

The Meander valley, Arches 35 x 18 cm

Snow-capped mountains near Bursa, Arches 40 x 30 cm

Near Bursa, Arches 35 x 25 cm

Olive garden, Arches 40 x 25 cm

A mountain view

Living in a "flat land" I envy people who have mountains at their doorstep. This view is based on a photo from a friend's hiking trip in the mountains near Vancouver. At least I could imagine I was there while painting it. I liked the fir tree edges outlined by back-light, and that's what I tried to focus on. Used a limited palette of indian yellow, cobalt blue and burnt sienna.

Trail to Tablelands

Tablelands are a mountainous formation in Gros Morne park in Newfoundland, made up of an entirely barren orange rock. It was formed several hundred million years ago during a plate collision, which forced up parts of the earth's mantle. These rocks have a very high metal content and lack the nutrients that plants need. It was interesting to see, where this barren orange mountain ends and suddenly the green hills begin.

West Brook Pond

West Brook Pond, Gros Morne Park, NL

West Brook Pond is a former fjord, which has been separated from the sea by a strip of land. Now it is a fresh water lake. The lake is practically at sea level and the steep mountains surrounding it reach up to 700 m. The only way to see it is a boat tour and on a clear sunny day the view is awesome. They say, if you have time to do only one thing in Gros Morne, take this boat tour.

10-minute watercolors

A view in the Rodopi mountains in Bulgaria

Rainy sunset at the lake

I have been reading, and re-reading, the little booklet "10-Minute Watercolors" by Hazel Soan. A real gem! The underlining idea is to learn to simplify your subjects so that you can capture their essence in a very few brushstrokes. Great skill especially for painting en plain air. Not being able to simplify is one of my big problems. Limiting my time makes me plan better and look only at the main and important things in the view. The other trick is using a very limited palette - no more that three colors. This saves time too and also leads to more harmonious colors. I didn't quite fit in the 10 minutes, especially with the first sketch, but I finished it relatively fast and stopped myself from going back and fiddling with little details.

The top one I did with prussian blue, alizarin crimson and yellow ochre; the other one is just prussian blue.

Erma gorge

My internet connection lately has been so bad, I cannot even access some blogs and can hardly open others. At least I can still view and post on mine.

This is a view of the gorge of the small Erma river, located about an hour drive west of Sofia. It was a lovely trip to a picturesque site.

Snow covered moraines

Vitosha, the mountain raising above the Bulgarian capital city Sofia, has many moraine fields. The rocks have been shaped and rounded by the elements for thousands of years. Hiking through the moraines can be a challenge, or fun, depending on the attitude.
The photographs I used, attracted me with the smooth shapes of the snow-covered rocks and the interesting light and shadow effects.

Blanket of snow

Needless to say, it is snowing outside again. Looks beautiful. As it is weekend nobody rushes to shovel, so the white cover is smooth and pretty.
This view is not from today, I am not so lucky to have such a view from my window. I've been thinking for a long time to try painting snow-covered spruce trees. I did this as a test, without a pencil drawing and it didn't turn out too bad.

Lake Louise

This is another attempt at the same view I tried back in November. I wasn't happy with the result back then and I am not satisfied now too. While there is some improvement, it is not the big change I expected to achieve. I have the feeling that I subconsciously try to stick to the same techniques and brushstrokes I have already done before. Maybe I should try a different mountain scene.

Winter sunset

I think that in one of my previous postings I insulted Winter, and it took a revenge by dumping piles of snow today. So I decided to try and rectify the situation by painting another winter landscape. I used a photo with interesting afternoon light, by my favorite photographer, with whom I happen to be related. I wanted to do a free and loose interpretation of the view. First I did the smaller one below, where I fussed and fiddled too much. I like better how the one above turned out.

Alps in color

This is the landscape of the second tonal sketch from before, now in color. I am quite happy with the way it  turned out. A perfect place to end my alpine series. It is snowing outside and maybe I should turn to painting warmer places....

Below Eiger 2

This is a second attempt of this landscape... not substantially different from the first one.

Alps - tonal sketches

Two tonal sketches of Alpine landscapes. The first I tried painting a few days ago, and may attempt again. The second is a really nice composition. I thought this would be a good exercise for me as I  keep having trouble with the color values.
For the first one I tried mixing Payne's gray with raw sienna, to make the color warmer.  It turned out that the raw sienna sediments and comes out much stronger in the darker shades. Not a good combination of pigments.In the second one I used just Payne's gray.