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Mission St. Francis Painting Finished

Oil Painting by Anni Adkins 2009

This is the final painting. I am quite pleased with the outcome. I wanted the painting to be about the pattern of the shadows on the wall and not about the building though wonderful. Enjoy!

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Tightening up the Painting

Close up Photo from January 4, 2009

I added silver leaf to the windows to give them a little kick and then repainted with the blue. Quite difficult to do and get the same transparency.

I purchased a couple of lights at Lowes that you can see in the corners of the photo. The color spectrum was very cold compared to the warm flood that I was using. I combined the two together and the effect was stunning.

I again went over the whole painting again to give the color greater depth and working on the light.

Photo Taken January 4, 2009

Finishing up the Highlights

I have filled in all of the highlights here. The next challenge is to have variation of color in the light and shadow areas to reflect the light flowing across the wall. This is the most difficult to do and the thing that makes the painting the most interesting. I will most likely have to go over the painting several times to get the exact effect that I want. I am pretty happy with the the color palette of the painting so far. This is the first painting that I have done reflecting Santa Fe colors since I moved here. The dusty purples, blues and pinks seem to give the landscape a mystical element.

Picture taken Novemeber 11 2008

Starting on the Highlights

I have gotten pretty far behind on posting the progress of this painting. It seems to be hard to keep up with the uploading the pictures from my camera to the site. I will try to include the dates and times worked in the future.

This picture was taken on November 1, 2008. Here I am working on filling in the highlights. I am adding warm tones of Cadmium yellow to magenta and white. I am using a very limited palette on this painting which includes: Prussian blue, magenta,  (These comprise the purples) Cadmium yellow medium and Zink yellow. White and carmine red create the pinks. The magenta and Zink yellow make the most wonderful oranges. That is all the colors that I use. The complementary colors are used to tone down the intensity.

Adding the Highlights

Filling in the Shadows

Pretty much have the shadow filled in on these shots. I don’t worry too much about the detail or the color at this stage since it is mostly under painting. I will paint over these areas several time before the painting is finished.

Looking pretty stripey at this point.

Here I have added a pink wash just to cover the white. All artist hate the white as it attracts the eye so strongly that it is impossiable to judge anything. Some artist put a nutural color wash over the whole canvas before they sketch on the image.

First time the canvas is totally covered.

Blocking in the Shadows & Light

These pics are simply the beginning of blocking in the shadow areas and the light areas. I just get a general since of the color at this point, mostly trying for the cool of the shadow areas and the warm color of the light area.  One of the most useful rules that I learned was: Warm Light –  Cool Shadows / Cool Light – Warm Shadows.

Mission Assissi - Color 1

Mission Assisi - Color 2 - Detail

Sketching the Picture on the Canvas

Getting the image on the canvas.

This is the first thing I do on a painting. Divide the picture in half in both directions and draw a cross here. Just keep dividing until you have as many sections as you feel that you need. 

Next I added the grid to the canvas matching the grid on the picture. I numbered the sections because the lines of the shadows quickly became confusing. I use an automatic pencil with a light lead.  A long ruler and measuring tape is helpful.

The canvas with the grid and picture.

First image with the grd.

 Sketching on the image is the next step.

Sketching this was very confusing because the shadows from top to bottom was much more extreme then appeared. One of the biggest reasons for doing a grid is for the lines to start ad stop where they actually are and not where you think they are.

Sketch 1

 Close up of the left top corner. 

Sketch Left, Top Corner

Mission St. Francis Assissi Painting – The Beginning

I thought it would be interesting to watch a painting as it develops. I have always thought the process was far more fascinating then the final product.  The first image is the photo that I took of the mission. The time of day was around 2:00 p.m. and the sun was high. Joe and I had been there and photographed the same church in the winter of 1994. The shadows on the wall then were from a row of trees across from it. Now there are some small shops there but no trees.  I was a little disturbed by this at first but soon was enjoying the strong stripes from the beams protruding from the wall.

My original photo with the grids drawn on and taped to the canvas.

Mission St Francis Assissi Original Photo

Art in the Making!

Welcome to my blog.  I thought it would be interesting to follow the artist process as paintings are created. I will take as many picture as often as I can so that you can see the progress and add my comments where I think they may be enlightening. Please feel fee to comment or let me know if any of this is interesting or helpful. If you would like to see my body of work or learn more about me, please visit my website at: anniadkins.com.