Studio Work - Oil

I stayed hibernating in the AC today and feel much better. Better enough to work on a studio oil painting. I haven't named this yet. I am not sure it is done, but wanted to stop short so it doesn't get over-done.

Here are some process shots. Because I wanted to take my time with this painting, I sketched the design on my panel with a water soluble pencil instead of using thinned oil paint.

This was painted from a photo I took on my recent trip to Cuyahoga National Park. When I take snapshots, I really don't plan the composition too much, as I usually crop the photos later for multiple designs. But this snapshot was a nice composition and I only cropped it to the ratio of a 11x14 panel. This is the largest I ever paint in oils, and generally no larger than 8x10.

I enjoy experimenting with different color palettes. The palette I used today, to me, makes some very nice colors. I used Rembrandt's Cold Grey, Gamblin's Indian Yellow and Perylene Red - both transparent colors, and Indanthrone Blue a semi-transparent I also used three new Gamblin products - new Cool White and Warm White, and Solvent Free Gel medium. I am liking the feel of the Solvent Free Gel medium with my paints. It gives just enough body to the paint without making it too slippery.

 The Indian yellow appears orange until you mix it with other colors or white. I really like the range of yellow green to blue greens you can make with this yellow with the Indanthrone blue.

I feel my painting has good color harmony using this limited palette. It is a subdued color scheme and less garish than a classic palette combination.