Figueroa Mountains8"x10"
Oil on stretched canvas
I received some Grumbacher Pre Test oil paints for Christmas and thought it was a good time to give them a try...good thing because I was out of Windsor Newton cadmium yellow pale!...my favorite yellow for making my greens with. The pre test paints work nicely and I did this one with them.
This scene is looking across the Santa Ynez valley. I just love the colors of our mountains up here. There are so many shades to them and at given times of the day they are luminous shades of blues and greens. Sometimes I think if I paint those people wouldn't believe it. I tried to capture some of that wonderful blue here...I think the intensity is a little strong in this photo but it's pretty close to this. If I painted this scene again I'd lighten the background. I worked on this one and another one at the same time. The other painting is below and you can see how light I lightened the mountains to push the distance more. When painting two paintings of the same area you tend to guage your colors off of the other painting. Fun stuff.
I began with my sky colors and then the mountains base colors. I'll add the mountain shadows next. I've also added spots of sky color that will be behind the trees.
Now I put in my mountain shadows and at the same time fill in an area that is toweards the valley floor...fields etc...nothing exact, just suggestive work here.
I now begin adding my darks. This is various mixes of Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow and Alizarin Crimson. 
It's time to put in thwe road and my mid greens. It's starting to come together now. I felt my deer looked a little low so I will move him up a bit before painting him in.
This is how I will move my deer up. I first paint in the area under the deer to fill in that area.
Now, I will scrub out the painted area that is still wet on the road where my new deer position will be. I use a small clean brush with turpentine to scrub the shape of the deer out. Wipe it off and soak up more of the now diluted paint until the area is clean.
I scrub out just enough of the wet paint to have a nice pretty dry area of canvas to paint in the new deer. I'm not the greatest wildlife painter so please excuse my deer. Maybe if I do a lot more deer I'll get them down better. I tried to keep good loose edges on my deer but I could have gone a little looser I think. 
My favorite part of this painting is the nice contrast of the dark green oaks and the far side of the canyon mountains....nice!
I bought some oak at Home Depot and cut it down to a thickness I wanted and began cutting the bevels and mitered corners. I glued and nailed it together with a new air-powerd brad gun since my old electric one couldn't handle the toughness of oak wood. The airgun made it a piece of cake to shoot the brads in. Once the glue had dried overnight I shot the brads and then began sanding. After that I wiped it down and rubbed oil/sealer/polisher to bring out that awesome golden oak finish. I mounted in to the frame and snapped pics to show you. 
I might make more of these later on when time permits since I have it figured out now. I'm still trying to build a workbench in the garage to work on these frame pieces but I'm backed up in painting since I've spent so much time preparing for the shows lately....all of that uis done so it is back to painting.
The gallery at MB is awesome...one of the best I've had my work shown in. The members are a great bunch of people and of course if you want awesome fish and chips you can't beat Morro Bay while on your trip to see art....trust me, I know! 
Anyway, this show will run for the month of January. An indicator of how well the show will be were all of the great comments made by members dropping off their art for the current show yesterday. Both Shirley and I were given some hearty pats on the back. The best thing of showing your work is the positive comments from your fellow artists.