FEBRUARY PROGRAM REVIEW … by Frieda Thorsen
Jeff began his presentation by describing the beautiful landscapes he brought to show us. “Every painting is a story describing what a magical place this is. Art is distilling what the mind is feeling.” Describing his technique, Jeff said, “I’m not an impressionist. I try to get into the depth and detail of the background, not the foreground – that’s tedious. I don’t want to put in every blade of grass. I try to capture the feeling of space falling away from you…
my compositions are less structured, I have room to create and improvise.”
His experience with water media and pastels as evident in his demo in oils of an aerial view of
Cabezon. The vertical 18x24 piece was first sketched with charcoal, then using pastels Jeff laid
in the dominant colors – Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Phthalo Blue and a little orange. Using linseed oil, he liquefied the pastels on the canvas to get the values and block in the dominant areas and shapes. He explained that the pastel underpainting won’t interfere with the oils because it’s thin.
Regarding materials, Jeff prefers small round tip brushes for oils because the big ones lose too much paint in the brush. He uses primarily Grumbacher and Liquitex paints. The palette for the demo was: Yellow Ochre, Cad Yellow, Cad Orange, Cad Red, Chrome Oxide (the only green he likes), Phthalo Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber.
He uses a lot of linseed oil poured right onto the palette and adds pigment to it. He started by making three puddles on the palette, one primarily white for the lighter values, one light blue (Cerulean, Ultramarine, a touch of Phthalo and white), and a pink puddle for the sky at horizon level.
Probably drawing upon his training in watercolors, Jeff began with the sky and the lighter values. “The sky is a balancing act, there is a gradation from light to dark as you go up.” He next worked on the shadows in the cliff areas using Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue and Cad Red. As the value in the background shadows lightened, he added more Ultramarine. Jeff noted that capturing the cool values of the bluish shadows in the New Mexico landscape going into space is a challenge. Then, using primarily Yellow Ochre, he painted the flat surfaces of the mesas in the middle ground. Raw Sienna and orange were used for the foreground flat surfaces. A little green was integrated into thebackground for the distant mountains.
Jeff finished the demo by feathering the sky. He likes to use a very thin fan brush to carefully and gently push the paint around and blend the transition of color, taking the brush strokes out.
Jeff commented that this painting would probably take 20 hours to complete. After the demo he will let it dry for one or two days and then apply the detail.
