CHRISTOPHER LEEPER WORKSHOP - DAY TWO

Starting with a good reference photo of a stream with sunlight in places, Chris began again by putting in his warm underlaying colors and darks to get a feel of how the painting is going.  He mixes lots of good greens and has variety in colors and shapes in his background foliage.

 It's starting to take shape now.

Like most artists, Chris love art books and brought a few to show us.  He recommends the Jeanne Dobie book, Making Color Sing, if you are having trouble mixing your greens.  You could also do swatches of color, mixing all your blues and yellows and other touches of color to get a good variety of greens if you're going to do landscapes.

Chris wanted to keep the highlights on the rocky area of the stream and the light on the water.

What a gorgeous painting!  And he makes it look so easy.

I have to keep telling myself he has years and years of experience in painting landscapes.  And I have to practice, practice, practice to get good at seeing the shapes and the variety of colors in all that green :)

The finished painting.  WOW!

And that was Day Two!  Chris says his palette contains more blues than anything because "every blue does something different."  He called Cobalt Blue a "shy color" - I loved that description of it.

Chris stressed that, in landscapes (and in everything else), it's important for us to "find connections, not labels", meaning find the large dark shapes or the small light shapes and tie them together, don't think, "I'm painting a tree, then I'll paint the rocks, then I'll paint the water" without tying them together visually.

And on Day Three he really pushed us into unknown territory, letting us try a Night Scene!