M. Stephen Doherty

M. Stephen Doherty
The editor of Plein Air magazine at work

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Painting From Photographs









I normally work from plein air sketches or my imagination, but the scene I photographed in Costa Rica was just too beautiful to pass up. I changed the foreground to make it more interesting and to introduce lines to direct viewers' attention around the composition, and I got rid of the overhanging branches since they suggested something beyond the canvas that wasn't resolved. While painting, I spent quite a bit of time trying to add variety to the otherwise monochromatic palette of greens, mixing various combinations of warm (ultramarine blue + cadmium yellow) and cool greens (Winsor blue + cadmium lemon); and I glazed mixtures of Galkyd medium and transparent colors (transparent red oxide, Indian yellow, Winsor blue). Now I'll spray it with retouch varnish to unify the surface with a gloss.
The painting is 18" x 24", oil on canvas. I'm going to put it on a shelf in my office so I can imagine being back in the tropical environment when I'm stuck in cold, wet, chaotic New York City.

3 comments:

  1. Very beautiful Steve! By making the waterfall larger it is as if we have moved further down the hill...wouldn't that be a place to have a small house with a veranda to sit each morning and have some coffee and just absorb it!!! Very nice!

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  2. " It look like the dinosaur times" from my 8 yr old gal.You've captured the atmosphere of a tropical forest Steve:)

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  3. I think this is my favorite thing about being an artist. I take lots of photgraphs to use as subject matter.

    For me changing the composition, subtracting, adding, or improving is what makes the painting a work of art.

    I enjoy the mood and the colors of the two paintings.

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