I loved last week’s watercolor version of this painting so much that I decided to try it again in oil. This one will be a studio painting instead of plein air though. I don’t have any sort of set up for oil plein air, so I don’t think it would go as smoothly as it did with watercolor.
My goal with this painting is to have a more complete and polished painting than what I achieved with the watercolor version. This version is also a bit larger than I usually work. I considered painting my usual 8×10 landscape. Then I considered my subject on an 8×10, the details of the canyons would be extremely small and tedious to paint. With that in mind, I chose to paint this on a 16×20 canvas. You’ll notice that this is also a toned canvas, which I don’t usually use. I’ve had this canvas lying around for several years and toned it in the way back when, when I still considered that a crucial element.
It has been a couple of years since I last painted a landscape in oils and clouds as always are a challenge. The whole time I was painting them I couldn’t help but compare them to my watercolor clouds that I loved. I tried very hard to paint in the same manner, but it just didn’t work out at all. Oils and watercolors are just so drastically different. I do like how the clouds coming along though. They look totally different from my reference photo, but I’m happy with that. I managed to paint more interesting clouds. In the photo they’re very distant, and somewhat flat in both appearance and mood.
Years ago, I would have painted the clouds with precision. They would have been exactly as I saw them in the photo even if they were boring. These days I have trouble painting photo real. I get bored with so many details and start improvising as I go. I like the paintings I’m ending up with a little better too. They have a little more of that painterly flare that I’ve always been so intrigued by.