Painting a painting, Lyell Canyon

Starting a new painting can be a little nerve-wracking, no matter how many times I've done it before. I have a photograph I'd like to render, a blank canvas, some paints, and a general idea of the way I'd like it to look. I assume that if I flail the paints in the direction of the canvas for some number of hours, it will eventually start to look the way I envision, but the process can be an exercise in fits and starts. Below, I've recorded my progress on my most recent painting, an acrylic of Lyell Canyon in Yosemite, from my hiking trip on the John Muir Trail. I took a picture after I finished each painting session, most of which last about 1-2 hours (I've averaged to 1.5 hours each).

Session 0

Total time so far: 0 hours.

Blank canvas, full of potential.

Session 1

Total time so far: 1.5 hours.

I don't like it, but that's OK. One of the nice things about starting a new painting is that it really really doesn't matter what it looks like. Rarely anything I paint on Day 1 gets retained in the final version. The most important things are just to get the white canvas covered in color, and to start mapping out the composition. I could have done this part entirely in oranges and pinks and it probably would have been fine. But still... I'm really not pleased with the way this looks.

Session 2

Total time so far: 3 hours.

Oh no, this is looking even worse. I tried to fix some of the things I didn't like about the mountains, and tried to start paying more attention to the colors I wanted to use, but this is terrible. I'm remembering that I have particular difficulty A.) painting water, and B.) painting green things. Selecting this particular scene may have been a mistake. I had to take this off the easel and place it face-down to avoid embarrassment when a friend came over to my place.

Session 3

Total time so far: 4.5 hours.

Ok, ok, now we're getting somewhere! I was pretty dispirited after the previous results, so I went into this session with the goal of just fixing the mountains. That was all. I thought if I could just do that, I'd get back on track and tackle more difficult things like the water next time. But I had some new blue paints that I hadn't used much, and I was curious to see what blend would get that bright turquoise color I wanted for the lower left corner. So I started color mixing as an experiment, then trying to see what would happen when I added some granite slabs disappearing into the water, and an hour later I had a river I actually like. And then I fixed the mountains also!

Session 4

Total time so far: 6 hours.

Still liking it! I'm not 100% sure about the yellow highlights on the trees... that might need some additional finessing. But the shadows and riverbank on the left-hand side turned out pretty well. My trees on the right are strangely shrimpy... It's true that they are actually smaller/young trees over there, but it looks weird and will need to be fixed next time. I also think the granite slabs going into the river on the right side are a little too stark, but that can be addressed. This painting is going a lot faster than expected all of a sudden! I might be done in a few sessions. Getting worried about adding more rocks and rapids to the river next time... seems like a significant opportunity to mess things up.

Session 5

Total time so far: 7.5 hours.

Things tend to change less dramatically towards the end of a painting, when the larger components are in place and the focus is on massaging the details into place. It becomes a bit of a "try to spot the 5 differences between these pictures" game. In this case, changes included:

1. Beefing up the trees on the right side, even though they remain smaller than those on the left. (I wish I had done this in my last session... recreating the tree paint colors was a challenge I didn't complete to my satisfaction).

2. Touching-up the colors on the small meadow in the upper right side. I'm now pleased with this section and will probably let it rest here.

3. Adding some rocks and rapids to the river. This will need some extra attention and a few more touch-ups, but the first draft went better than I'd feared.

4. Adding some shallow water ripples right below the river rapids. I have mixed feelings about this bit, but I'm comfortable enough with it for now.

Sessions 6 & 7

Total time spent: 10.5 hours

It's finished! Changes made in the final several hours are so minor that this looks almost identical to the previous picture. But I spent some more time fixing things I didn't like about the granite rocks and shadows in the river. I also finished painting out the sides of the canvas (shown in pic). Clocking-in at approximately 10 hours total, this is definitely one of my quickest paintings as well as one of my current favorites.