DEMONSTRATION: Building Up Shapes and Textures
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Leeper worked on portrait linen glued to hardboard, toned with a loose mix of transparent red earth and solvent and rubbed back to a lighter tone with a rag. He used asphaltum to draw in his rough design. “I’m just trying to get the big shapes and divisions at this point,” he says. “I’m not going for specific shapes but rather the proportion of the shapes in relation to each other. I’m deciding how to divide up the space and setting the scale and proportions of the composition.”
Local color came next in a classic block-in of the major shapes. Leeper used Liquin so this layer would dry quickly. The artist mixed his colors slightly dark, knowing that lighter paint would be added later in the process. He mixed three or four basic colors ahead of time and adjusted them as he went along to turn the forms and make them dimensional and more lifelike.
“This is where I needed to be a little more precise in terms of light and shadow,” Leeper says. “Painting with a lot of dappled light can look great right away or need many adjustments. I am willing to change the light patterns all the way to the end of the painting.”
Step 4 Next, Leeper carved away at the tree shadows until he was satisfied with their appearance and how they worked in the composition. Using a No. 2 flat brush, he began to add detail using straight paint — no medium. “I was starting to think about the specific edges of shapes,” he recalls. “With rapid brushwork, I went into smaller areas and built up the textures.”
A Celebration of Shadows, 2020, oil, 20 x 24 in., collection the artist, plein air and studio
Final Step Back in the studio, Leeper refined the painting further. “The painting looks lighter in value here only because it is a better photo,” he says. “At this stage, I am putting in smaller details and adding bright lights and dark darks with a fine round brush. Some paintings don’t go to this level of detail, but the way that tree came across the composition, it needed to be more specific. And that pushes everything in that direction a little further. I finished it in the studio, so I had all the opportunity to build details. If I had finished this on location, it would be much more suggestive.”
56
August-September 2021 / www.outdoorpainter.com
