Night View of Mill and River (Oil Bar Painting Day 1)

Night View of Mill and River (Oil Bar Painting Day 1) Originally uploaded by randubnick

Today I went to Red Brick to start this painting, a night view of the Merrimac River in Manchester, NH. Before I left home, I looked at my photo of this scene, and then worked from memory and imagination. (I had already worked out the composition in a digital sketch on my PDA.) I began painting right away, without drawing first, just sketching with yellow oil bar. I used a T-square for straight lines. I used the oil bars like giant color crayons, just to establish the composition. For the most part, I wasn't mixing colors, which is why these colors are so strong. I will tone the colors down quite a bit as I work, but I wanted to be able to see the composition quickly. I could only work for a short time, so this is as far as I was able to go today. I want to do six to eight paintings in this series by January, and I plan to have two or three of the paintings in progress at the same time. It's more fun, and it helps to make sure that the paintings are visually related (in technique, color, style, etc.). It is also a practical way to deal with the relatively slow drying time of oil paint.