Spring Bloom - plein air demo

Spring Bloom, 9 x 12, oil on panel, L. Daniel © 2012

Last Thursday, I painted at a beautiful park in Marble Falls that had field after field of bluebonnets. It was breathtaking, really. A friend of mine took some pictures of my painting in progress and sent them to me so that I would be able to share process notes with my students. Below each image is a brief explanation of what I am thinking about as I develop the painting. Enjoy! 

Here I am on location, facing my subject and blocking in the scene. 

Block-In - Using a dark neutral of french ultramarine and burnt sienna,

I use a line and mass block-in technique to roughly set down the scene.

I check placement and drawing before moving on.

Dark Upright Plane and Distant Plane - 

I observe the dark uprights as they recede into the distance, 

and determine how they will change as they move from foreground to background.

I mass in the large shapes with the best average color and value 

(and ignore all temptation to indicate detail.)

Ground plane - This is tricky because the ground plane is both receding 

and very light in value, which leaves a smaller range of color to choose from.

I begin to lay in passages that will travel from foreground to background, 

making value and chroma adjustments as they recede.

More Ground Plane passages...

Again, I choose the best average color and value for each passage

knowing that I will add highlights and lowlights later on.

Sky plane - I mass in the sky where the lightest lights are.

The value of the sky is a very important key to the rest of the painting. 

Although I often mass in that area last, I am thinking about it the whole time. 

Once all the large masses are in place and values are working correctly, 

I go back in to break them up and refine them with subtle value shifts. 

Final Nuances - Here is the final piece 

after all the refinements have been completed. 

(There was an equipment change for this last image - it was shot 

at a much higher resolution which explains the higher definition.)

Many thanks to Cindy DeBold for her photos!!!