Tree near Upper St

I'm painting a tree in a lane for Melody and this is it so far... 

It's a big linen canvas(around 1.4x1.15 metres in size)

 

 - I found a cheap way to make good timber canvas stretchers so I celebrated by buying some unprimed linen. Once prepped* it takes paint more cleanly than cotton because it doesn't pill at all, but therefore it also doesn't form an impermeable barrier to size and primer.)

 

A bit more green - its hard to see the difference in photos now as I finish it, perhaps a HDR image format would help with that. My cameras have a cheat where it takes 3 exposures, for dark, light and in the middle, which might work with a static image like this as long as I use a tripod
 

After another visit to the spot its looking more finished - I've been meeting a few of the people who live just there. 

Max and Alison were wondering about the painting, if it was for sale. And whether I will be putting a magpie in scene. It's a commission but I'd be happy to paint a scene with a tree for them. I mentioned the parliamet of Birds I'm working on back at the studio, which has a pair of magpies in it. And maybe I'll add a magpie or 2 here as wll. In the tree or foraging on the rad -  which still looks a bit empty.

 I also met a musician from next door - I'll have to find out his name when I take the painting back there one last time for a final check and retouch.

First there's stuff to finish from yesterday

 

 

 

The painting after a session where I took it up to the lane its based on

 

 

painting green into the foliage...
 

 

 

With most of the painting except the leaves are all weird shadowy purple

 

 

 

 

I went back to the lane today to complete the composition. There's aheap left to do, lots of foliage etc, but it looks like fun. I think I'll do some at home especially if its wet, and also get back on site once or twic more
 

 Blue sky on the lane (painted with the assistamnce of photos I took a few days ago. It was damp and cloudy today. I'm hoping it will be dry enough to go up to the spot soon

 

 

 

After the first day I had a bunch of photos and stopframe video(before I left the tripod on the bus on New Years eve) including of a car on jacks being worked on), so I went off home to keep working from the video screen, and to prepare myself for the next time I go out there - maybe this afternoon
 

 

 

This is after the first day painting this beautiful gum tree in a yard off a lane in Forest Lodge(or maybe Glebe). I started it of on site and will return as often as possible. Its about 6 short blocks from my studio, without much up or down

 

 I've got some stop frame video I'll probably add to my youtube channel later

 

I might even create a playlist of stopframe videos of working on paintings on location

This is just the start, I'll continue with a combination of working at home from photos and memory, and going back over there. It's only a few blocks away. There's a drawing of the same tree here from a couple of weeks ago.

 

*Preparing canvases.

I'll go into this more another time with some video I've been shooting with Julie O'Brien, but its very important for the longevity of a painting to do it properly.

What you will be painting with matters. The layers underneath should be done for the actual paint you will be using. I paint in oil paint , so my canvases - and anything else I'm about to paint on, is prepared so oil will stick to it. This basically means use oil all the way down, oil and water repel, and paint can peel where one goes over the other. So don't undercoat your oil painting with acrylic paint, even its (mis)labelled gesso

But there's just one problem: oil is an acid(stearic acid is animal fat, and its linoleic acid in linseed oil). Over time the acid oil paint will rot the (cellulose?) canvas if there is no barrier between them.

So before priming a freshly stretched 'loomstate'(ie unprimed) canvas with an undercoat, a thin glue 'size' is liberally sponged across it, then left sitting flat to dry. Traditionally this size is gelatine - rabbit skin glue. I'm thinking of trying it again but over the last 20 years I've been using thinned PVA glue, about 1 part PVA to 4 parts water(it should seem quite watery. and its important to use a decent quality glue that's not mostly emulsifier and thickener, like a lot of 'craft glues'. Add a drop or 2 of anti-fungal stuff for acrylic paint, whether its PVA or gelatine, or its possible for mould to slowly grow on the back, especially if you live in Nimbin or other humid environments

Then use an oil paint to prime. Some student brand whites are as good as some of the artist quality brands(looking at you Art Spectrum, whose white are too oily

for my liking. You can get an idea of the quality by weigh them up next to each other. White pigment is heavy.(esp ZnO but also TiO2 The better the paint, the heavier the tube. I often use more paint priming than executing the actual piece on top.

Paint from the tube is too thick to use directly. I mix it out with some turps(gum or mineral) or white spirit(=refined mineral turps) so the consistency is like icecream that's on the point of melting. That way its much easier to apply with both brush and roller

 Prepare a jar or jars the night before. I get about 2 m2 undercoating done on freshly sized canvas per 200ml Winton(the Winsor and Newton student brand) tube of Titanium white, and slightly less from the same volume of its oily competitor. 

Brexit has made Winsor and Newton paints much more affordable by smashing the Poms' exchange rate - but how long it can last I'm not sure. the paints themselves are made in France