Second Beach, Newport by Worthington Whittridge: Session 4

After finishing the third session on this copy, I went home and thought a lot about this painting and how I wanted to proceed for the next session. Between the painting sessions, I spent time thinking about how I would begin my next session and also trying to figure out how to accomplish the soft and layered quality of the sky.  When it was time to came back to the gallery, I arrived with an action plan. With the beginning of the fourth painting session, I pulled out my oil cup and poured out the first medium I planned on using for this layer of the painting.

:: Status at the beginning of the day ::

My goal was to get through the first "refining" pass through of the sky.

I wanted to begin to introduce the more soft and subtle effects of the sky and clouds.  I also needed to shift the colors some and lighten the values also, so while I was working on the clouds I was also laying in a new sky color, so the entire area of the sky got a new coat of paint.

Occasionally I will lay in a big splat of paint in a location to help me key my values correctly.  This is what the large white square of paint is doing in the photo above.

:: Further along in the day ::

The clouds are full of colorful passages.  Pinks, purples, yellows, and muted oranges are all present in these clouds, however I am constantly striving to lay them in softly, like Whittridge did, where my tendency is to hieghten the contrast when painting skies.

:: At the end of the day ::

I did not get the entire sky complete, I left the lower left-hand clouds untouched because when I work those, I will also need time to work the rocks and hills also.