Dramatic Cloud Study

I took the following photo and wanted to paint the scene - with the clouds being the dramatic focus.

So I painted it. Here is my first attempt. Now, I have had two different "cloud lessons" from Rachael McCampbell over the past couple years - and doggone it, I STILL can't do clouds well.



So, after being totally unhappy with those clouds, I scraped off the sky entirely.


Then I painted it again.


Okay - it sucks. So I left it - figuring that if I let it dry a little overnight, it might work a little more easily.  Right now it's just a mass of paint. "Muddy" is the term that comes to mind. I will tackle it again in a day or two.

One thing I considered was that I used an Ampersand Gessobord for this painting. The Ampersand Gessobord has a very slick surface. Maybe I should have tried one of my Belgium Linen panels. I may re-do this scene on one of those. The other thing is that maybe I'm putting on the paint too thickly. I tend to be overly generous with my paint, and that makes it more difficult to finesse things like clouds. So there are two things to work on for this painting.

Stay tuned for more attempts. I know I can get the trees and the grass and the hay rolls to look right. They don't look right now because I've just blocked them in. But I know how to paint them. It's just the clouds right now that have me stumped.

#Oilpainting, #paintingclouds, #marycarolart, #cloudstudy

A workshop with Rachael McCampbell

I signed up for a 5-week workshop with Rachael McCampbell. I've taken several workshops with her - including the week-long workshop at Arrowmont in Gatlinburg, TN back in October.  As it turns out, I will only be able to attend two of the five sessions.  Last week was the first session.  The second session will be December 12th.

The class is on landscapes.  Here is what I did last week.  It is based on a photo I took right outside of Gatlinburg during the Arrowmont week.

I like the little house on the left.  It was actually a barn.  However, I took artistic license and made it into a cabin. It seemed to fit in better with the painting.  I will be looking for what I want to paint at the next session.  This is actually one of my favorite paintings now.  I wish I had put the barn/cabin a couple inches further into the painting.  It's so far on the edge that in most photos, it hardly shows up.  When I frame it, the frame will probably cut off a little of it.