©dweaverart
On Sunday Feburary 14, 2021 a very powerful winter storm Uri came into the deep south and produced freezing rain, sleet and snow. On Wednesday night the same week another winter storm came into the south named Viola and dump a whole lot of snow. On Thursday the following day that afternoon I painted a shed that was in the snow. I went and got prepared to paint in plein air. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to paint the snow in plein air something I have never done in the snow. In this photo you see my plein air set up. I use a homemade stay wet palette and a french easel which was given to me as a gift. I have a wooden board in dimension of 12"x20" that I place the underneath the stay wet palette.
Whenever I paint in plein air I work with a limited palette. A limited palette is a arrangement of primary color with white how ever I add a raw umber in order to get as close as possible to a black. As a artist painting in plein air time is critical because of the light of the sun. In this case there was no sunlight at all it was an overcast day. The colors seen in nature under a overcast sky are muted ( desaturated ). The colors are not as vivid and saturated than under a sunny sky.
The most important reason for using a limited palette your color will harmonize more naturally. Also less color you have to carry or bring to your scene to paint. My limit palette are starting at the top from left to right are cadmium yellow light, yellow ochre, cadmium red medium. The bottom half from left to right phthalocyannine blue, titanium white and raw umber.
8"x10"
This is a photo of my color ground or color stain of the stretched canvas. I paint with acrylic so all the colors I use is acylic paint which is water base paint. I used a spray bottle of water and saturated the canvas and mixed the colors of paint on the wet canvas. The colors for the ground are cadmium red medium and phthalocyannine blue.
8"x10"
After I applied the wet color to the canvas I used a dry old rag and wiped the color all over the canvas to stain it. This is how the canvas will looks like after the color is wiped into the stretched canvas.
©dweaverart
I want to show you the reference photo right beside the picture of the painting. The reason I want to share this with you without the colors is because of the value. As artist who paint in the style of realism must understand the value stucture which influences to color mixing. Value is the light and darkness of a color. When you take away the color and make it black white and grays you began to see the ranges of value in your subject.
©dweaverart
Here is the finished painting of the subject. You can see the shed the fence in the lower right side of the painting the smaller shed to the left with snow on it's roof and the trees in the painting. I used a flat brush #10 to block in the large shapes. It is very important when you paint in plein air to block in all the large shapes the darks first to the lighter value. I also used a small round brush to refine the large shapes. Finally, I used a palette knife to brake up the large area of space both negive and positive space in the compostion. Give me your feed back on this painting or if you are interested in purchasing this painting then email me at dweaver15@gmail.com You can also direct message me on Instagram @dweaverart and on facebook @dweaverart. Thank you.
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