Paintings Thoughts and Process ©Jennifer E Young
SEASON’S GREETINGS!
I hope you enjoy this holiday season and that the new year finds you happy, healthy, and celebrating the beauty in our world. Thank you so much for your patronage and friendship!
JENNIFER YOUNG
www.jenniferyoung.com
Happy Thanksgiving friends! Here is a little start-to-finish video demo of a recently completed studio piece entitled "Snowfall in Ashland". May this painting video of my hometown bring you cheer as you prepare for your own festivities celebrating the blessings of home, family, and friends.
Subscribers will have already read that I am running some online auctions as part of a fall sale. What's new in this post is that I have created a page on my permanent website dedicated to my auctions and special offers, which will provide a quick and easy way to view both my auctions and any other promotional sales I might be offering at a given time. I've just listed two new auctions this week and will be adding more in the weeks ahead, so be sure to bookmark the page and check back often!
Some of the most romantic and beautiful moments of my Vinalhaven, Maine residency were when I awoke to see the island enveloped in mysterious fog. Attempting to paint that fog from life, however, takes actual work and perseverance. The shifting atmospheric effects on the land and the oh so subtle value ranges require astute concentration and alertness in the midst of the peaceful stillness.
Not too far from where I was staying sat a lovely field of wildflowers fronting some wetlands. Purple-violet lupines, as beautiful as any hothouse flower, grow wild throughout the region in spring, as do buttercups, pink clover, daisies, Queen Anne's lace, and numerous other beauties I wasn't able to name.
"Lupines in the Mist", Oil on linen, 11x14" (SOLD) ©Jennifer E Young
My 11x14" plein air piece (above) found its home on the island, but I wanted to return to that experience back in the studio while my memory of it was still fresh. I painted the larger version with a slightly different angle to include the hint of wetlands in the background in order to give it a better sense of place. Click through on the image below for more info.
Today I thought I'd share the progressive steps for my newest painting of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. (My usual disclaimers and apologies about the quality of these in-progress photos apply due to lighting conditions in my temporary work space.) This view is near the little B&B where we have stayed on a couple of occasions while visiting Bedford, Virginia.
I'm starting as usual with a sepia-toned sketch thinned with Gamsol to work out the main elements of my composition. This is very loose and general, but it helps me to determine placement. At this early stage I am not overly obsessed with exactness of the forms. Unlike with watercolor, in oil painting I like to carve and refine shapes as I go along.
In the next steps I concentrate on massing in areas in the shadow family. This doesn't take too long because in contrast to my prior painting of the Blue Ridge which was predominantly in shadow, this new painting is predominantly sunlit, with a light source that is nearly overhead.
Next steps are massing in the meadow and the rest of the tree shapes, as well as the distant mountains
Followed by the sky
With the canvas nearly covered I work out the finer details of my primary focal area (the horses).
At the final stages I add some suggestions of wildflowers to the field. I also add highlights and soften edges here and there, until I achieve the illusion of depth and light I'm after.
Voila! The final:
"Life in the Meadow", Oil on linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer Young
Art gallery of European and American landscape and still life oil paintings by Virginia artist Jennifer E. Young. Jennifer's plein air and studio paintings celebrate her love of color and the natural world. Her work has been exhibited and collected internationally.
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