The Second Triptych

Well, I have finally started on the second triptych.

I am letting the first triptych (set of three panels that make up one painting) sit and vegetate! I need for it to sit in the room where I am working on this one -- and let me look at it every so often and think about what I might like to do that would change it into a painting that is worthy of putting out there in the public eye.


This triptych is a portion of a pastel painting -- taking a center slice out of it. The focus is on the rocks and water. I had to add a little of the land area at the top to make the painting compositionally better. The people choosing this for the triptych had sliced it so that there was just a very slim line of land -- which looked a little funny to me. It created a spot in the painting that people would wonder "what is that?".

These are the two left panels started with a dark wash on the areas that will be the darkest. I like using different of my darkest transparent colors to do this -- Winsor Violet, Alizarin Crimson, Sap Green and Ultramarine Blue. Laying the composition in is a very important part of the process and the darks help me do that.

The next photo is where I can choose either to put in the lightest light or the most intense color. Here I did choose to use the intense color of the greens -- the mossy greens mostly. You can see many different colors used here. I mix most of my greens from either Ultramarine Blue or Cobalt Blue and many different yellows: Cadmium Yellow Pale, Gamblin's Radiant Lemon Yellow to just name a couple. Each of these combinations create a very different green. I also add Ivory White to lighten them a little -- I don't like using the Titanium White to lighten as it seems to make colors very chalky and cooler.

The third image you see here is adding blues -- which are very close in value to the greens.

The two images below are as I am adding more of the yellows into the painting -- some of the lighter areas. I have included a grey scale image on the left of the image on the right. You can then get an idea of how close in value some of the yellows, greens and blues are.


















I was so busy painting, putting up the right side on the easel, I forgot to take photos of the beginning stages of this side? Sorry. But, we have below the first photo I did take, I have brought this side up to a level where there is one layer of paint on the whole surface.


This is the busier side of the painting and will require quite a bit of thought on what I need to simplify. I struggle with simplifying -- I tend to paint what I see. I am making progress with putting in only what makes the painting better and says all that needs saying.

There are many wonderful colors on this side of the painting and I tend to want to put them all in. You can make this successful, if you will try to use the same value -- changing only the color or temperature of the color.

The photo below on the right is a little further along where I have softened some of the edges, trying to simply the transition from one object to another. There is a little glare on the painting because of my use of Archival Lean as my medium. This does a wonderful job of keeping all the colors that are more matte in line with those that have a sheen.


You can also see that I have started adding some of the dark ripples in the water to make there be motion in this painting. There will be many more additions to the water to make the build up I prefer in my paintings. And again, you can see the grey scale of the photo on the right to show how close in value some of the colors really are. Tell me what you think so far.