Category Archives: Painting Demonstrations

This week on the easel: Val d’Orcia W.I.P.

Posted on August 18, 2011 by jennifereyoung| Leave a comment

Just a quick post to share what is in progress on the easel this week:

My studio time (which includes painting, but also varnishing and framing, website updates, emails, blogging, photography, sales/marketing, office work, etc.) is now limited to a few hours every other weekday. Painting takes precidence, but every now and then I really must play catch-up with “everything else”. So it was with Monday, and I only had time to do the layout in sepia:

Tuscany landscape painting in progress by Jennifer Young

Upon my return to the easel, I tackeled the block-in (first pass) which is still mainly shadows and midtones:

tuscany landscape painting in progress by jennifer young

Time ran out before I was able to get to the hilltop buildings, but I was happy to have covered the rest of this 24×30″ canvas in about 3 1/2 hours. Because I can’t always get back to an “open” painting, I at least want to return to a canvas that is brought to the same level of completion in all areas.

This is a view I have painted before (a number of years ago) and I am returning to it now to see if I can use a looser approach. There is quite a bit of information in this scene, and my aim is to relay a feeling of the variety in the landscape of Tuscany, but in a more unified, simplified manner, without articulating everything in minute detail.





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Posted in Italian Landscapes, Painting Demonstrations, Painting Technique

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Rooftops, St. Cirq Lapopie (final)

Posted on May 23, 2011 by jennifereyoung| 2 Comments

I’ve been struggling with a killer cold or allergy or something for over a week now, so it’s really thrown me for a loop in the studio. But I have now finished the French village painting I have been blogging about in my last couple of posts (here and here). I did not have a chance to take any more progression shots due to the amount of time I lost, so my apologies to those who were following the progression of the work-in-progress.

French village landscape painting St Cirq Lapopie

“Rooftops, St. Cirq Lapopie”
Oil on Linen, 30×24″
Click here for details and purchasing info.

There was a certain quality of light I was after in this painting…a slight haziness that comes on a warm day when the sun begins to filter through the clouds after a soft rain (the weather when I visited there could best be described as “changeable”!) So there are a soft edges and  close values to tackle, especially in the middle and far distance.

St. Cirq Lapopie is a fortressed village dating back to the Middle Ages. Sitting high above the Lot River, it is, as I mentioned in my prior post,  dripping with so much charm that it really does invoke fairy tales of knights and damsels in distress!Narrow cobbled streets wind their way through cliffsides, leading up to a fortressed peak that allows stunning views of the steep tiled rooftops and the Lot valley.





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Posted in Art Travels, French Landscapes, Garden paintings, Painting Demonstrations, The artist's life

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St. Cirq Rooftops WIP (cont’d)

Posted on May 16, 2011 by jennifereyoung| 3 Comments

As it turned out, there was too much weather and too little opportunity to do any plein air painting last week. But I have been plugging away at my studio painting of St. Cirq La Popie. The images below show my continued progress thus far.

Laying in my lightest passages, I worked on the sky and distant cliffs and ruins first. Next, I started on my rooftops. In this region, I noticed that there were a lot of gray-blue undertones along with the terra cotta-tiled rooftops, so I experimented with laying in a gray base to start. I am not really sure if doing so helped me or hindered me, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

France landscape painting in progress by Jennifer Young

St. Cirq Lapopie

France landscape painting in progress by Jennifer Young

France landscape oil painting by Jennifer Young

At this point, I need to refine, work on the garden, and bring out my highlights, so this is what I’ll be working on today. This painting is all angles and not much actual landscape, so my progress has been a little slow going at times. Nevertheless, the composition and the concept interest me. I do miss plein air painting, but I have decided I need to make the most of being studio-bound by experimenting, working on new challenges,  and working out some new ideas. 





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Posted in French Landscapes, Garden paintings, Painting Demonstrations, Painting Technique

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In the works- Rooftops, St. Cirq La Popie

Posted on May 10, 2011 by jennifereyoung| Leave a comment

Just thought I’d do a quick post of what is currently on my easel. It’s a 24×30″ painting of  a location I visited on my last trip to France; St. Cirq La Popie. St. Cirq La Popie is probably one of the most storybook-pretty villages in France that I have yet seen. I am actually hoping to do a little plein air painting today during baby E’s naptimes, so this will be brief. Let’s hope the nap gods are with me!

France landscape St. Cirq La Popie

 

France landscape St. Cirq La Popie





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Posted in Art Travels, Drawing & Sketching, French Landscapes, Garden paintings, Painting Demonstrations, The artist's life

Tuscan Vineyard (remaining progress pics & final)

Posted on May 3, 2011 by jennifereyoung| Leave a comment

Here are the final images for the Tuscan Vineyard W.I.P. I have been posting about. Again, the progress images are not color corrected, though the final is.  The linen canvas I used originally had a clear primer on it (as opposed to a white gesso). While it is an archival product, the surface seemed more absorbant, so I applied a couple of additional layers of my own white gesso (and sanded in between) to get the paint to sit better on the top. Even so, it still ended up with more of a surface texture, which compelled me to use a lot of thick paint. As a result, I had a really hard time photographing this painting because I kept getting glare in some spot or another.

Okay, now that I’m done with my disclaimers, I’ll wrap this up! Having worked out my compositional problems, I next spent a good deal of time developing the treeline in the middle distance.

Tuscany painting work in progress by Jennifer Young

My aim is to keep the edges soft but defined. I want to lead the eye to the out-building, and not distract from it, so I put slightly more definition in the pale sivery trees directly behind the building.

tuscany painting in progress by Jennifer Young

Next I work my way forward again, to resolve the farmland around the building.

tuscany painting in progress by Jennifer Young

And finally, I put the finishing touches on the vineyard.

Tuscany landscape painting by Jennifer Young
“La Vigna Privata” (The Private Vineyard)
Oil on Linen, 24×30″
SOLD!





Jennifer Young; Vibrant Landscapes
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Posted in Italian Landscapes, Painting Demonstrations, Painting Technique, Tuscany Paintings

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