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    All images are Copyright Protected and the property of Jamie Williams Grossman. Paintings and photos displayed on this site may not be reprinted, copied, downloaded, displayed elsewhere, or used for any reason without her written permission.

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    "Happy" with it is an understatement! My sister's husband said, "Wow, it's beautiful!" That's a lot of emotion coming from him! haha. And my adult daughter said, "OMG MOM, ITS GORGEOUS!". You have added to your fan club!

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    "I love the new painting! It's actually a little more golden and fluid than it looks in the pic and I love the movement; everything in my house is a little on the warm and yellow and gold side so it could hang pretty much anywhere. It's going to the framer shortly and I look forward to having it up :-)"

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    ------------------------------------------ If you haven't seen the two-DVD set, "The Impressionists", you don't know what you're missing!

    the-impressionists.jpg


    I rented it from Netflix and absolutely loved it. It is an enactment of the lives of Monet, Renoir, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, and other Impressionist painters living at that time around Paris. Fascinating and eye-opening!





« How I Varnish Oil and Acrylic Paintings
Esopus Lighthouse from Mills Mansion »

Magical Sunset and Demo

080903-magical-sunset-5x7-400

5×7″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Ampersand Gessoboard
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I drove to the other end of the lake to get western views of the sunset. We took loads of photos. This is my first painting from that series of images. I managed to stop myself a few times along the way to take some photos and post a demo.

I set up to paint with more colors on my palette than usual in order to get the more highly saturated sunset colors.

080903-magical-sunset-5x7-palette-800

As you can see above, I used a more expanded palette for this painting than usual. My color choices were:
Titanium White
Cadmium Yellow Primrose
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Light
Pyrrole Red
Quinacridone Magenta
Ultramarine Blue
Jenkins Green
Phthalo Blue
Carbon Black

080903-magical-sunset-5x7-board-400

When I paint on a small board like this 5×7″ Gessoboard above, it’s hard to hold it and paint edge to edge. I use “blu tack” and affix it to an 8×10″ board. Then I can hold the larger board and be able to paint all the way to the edges without getting paint on my fingers, or I can set it down on a little tabletop easel.

My computer monitor yields stronger, more accurate color and chroma than a printed out photo, so I like to set up like this for small works and paint right off the computer screen. I use the old telephone book on the right to wipe my brushes before rinsing. It’s a great way to conserve paper towels and simultaneously recycle and old phone book. When the page gets filled with paint, I just tear it off, toss it, and go to the next page.

080903-magical-sunset-5x7-setup-400

When a painting has areas of light, highly saturated color, I always put that down first. That holds the chroma, and then I can paint into it. It’s a lot easier to dull down strong color than it is to get this kind of brilliance on top of a grey or dark color. You can see how I reserved all the areas of strong color here:

080903-magical-sunset-5x7-wip-400

Once the base colors and values have been laid down, I can start painting into them, creating variation, adding details, and adjusting edges. From the step above, it isn’t a long way to the finish line:

080903-magical-sunset-5x7-400

Posted by Jamie on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm.

3 Responses to “Magical Sunset and Demo”

Jamie- I got here from the painter’s keys. Very informative blog! Your work is wonderful! Thanks for your tips about Open Acrylics.

Left by Virginia Wieringa on September 9th, 2008

Hi Jamie – I do admire this sunset with a warm feeling. Thanks much for the varnish hints. What happen if you apply the varnish two weeks after you finished painting – not waiting the six months?

Left by Nick Bouteneff on December 21st, 2008

Nick, hi! Thanks so much for your kind comments. This particular painting is done with the Golden OPEN Acrylics, so it can have an isolation coat and be varnished within a month.

I know that many artists varnish oil paintings early. I always try to wait as long as possible. Of course it depends also on how thickly you paint. If you can easily dent the paint film with a fingernail, it’s too soon to varnish. Different problems can result depending on the mediums you used and the type of varnish. I’ve had paintings that never dried. I’ve got two in my studio that I varnished too soon. That was about three or four years ago and they are still tacky!

Left by Jamie on December 21st, 2008

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