River and Bridge (Oil Bar Painting Day 5)

River and Bridge (Oil Bar Painting Day 5) Originally uploaded by randubnick

Yesterday I went to the studio to put clouds into this painting of the Merrimac River. My goal was to reproduce the look of the digital version I did yesterday to try out the effect. (I sketched in the clouds in digital pastel overlaid on a photo of the painting.) I printed out a copy of the version with digital clouds, and took it along to use as a reference. Well, it took a while, and this still needs work, but by the time I finished painting, but I had the basic placement and color of the clouds and the reflections of the sky in the water. I am new to using oil bars, and it took several hours to paint the clouds in, as opposed to just a few minutes to sketch the clouds in digitally (even using the mouse to draw, which is what I do.) This painting is based on one of my photographs, but the photo doesn't show very much of the sky, so I had to derive what was going on in the sky by looking at the reflections in the water. The next step will be to soften the line of the clouds, in both the water and in the sky, and to straighten out the lines of the bridge. To be continued. . . .