2.8.24 Thursday - Re-Acquired Paintings 7 and 8 of 10

This week I’ll be sharing two pieces of original artwork per day, pieces I’ve just recently re-acquired from exhibitions, or no longer in direct rotation for some of the more competitive show opportunities I’ve been pursuing.

While the work itself isn’t brand new - what I’ll be offering this week will be a bit of information about how the pieces came about, or other tidbits about each.  All the pieces are, as of this writing (the previous week), available through my website store.

Additionally, if you ever see something on my site yet you cannot find it in the Available Works section of my website, just ask me about it, by replying to one of these emails, using the contact page of my website, or sending me a new email at David@DavidOSmithArtist.com

Today’s pieces:

“Plein Air, Olympic Range from Discovery Park, Overcast, 3-3:45pm, 1.11.23 Wednesday”, watercolor, 30 x 42”, 2023

This painting was my first plein air watercolor at this scale, 30 x 42 inches.  It was a bit intimidating to approach a piece of paper this large.  I’d already completed many pieces at 22 x 30 inches, and had found the most success by just working as I normally would on a smaller scale, albeit with a bit more pigment, more water, and a larger space to mix color on my palette. I chose this view of the Olympic mountain range as seen from Discovery Park on an overcast day because it was relatively simple - not too many different elements or tones - the sky and water a very colorful mix of different pigments to create “grey”, warmer clouds poking through, the snow visible on the mountaintops creating an interesting texture.  I was fortunate to have my first attempt at this scale work out as well as it did.  I never assume when starting a painting that it is going to turn out ok, I just try to pay as much attention as I can in the moment to what I am observing, and how that will interact with what I am painting.

“Plein Air, 5:15-6pm, Alki, 2.2.23, Thursday”, watercolor, 30 x 42”, 2023

This remains one of my favorite works at this scale, 30 x 42 inches.  I made this painting unplanned, on my way to another engagement, but the sky was intriguing, so I either missed my appointment or was late, I don’t recall.  I’d already tried several times to accurately paint the colors of this kind of atmosphere at this time of day - overcast, dusk, before sunset but after the sun had set behind low cloud cover.  I enjoyed seeing the deep red of the foreground, the refection of the dark clouds on the water, and the peach and cerulean (sky) blue colors of the sky mixing on the calm water’s surface to create a greenish glow.  This piece is very rare for my practice in that I did some touchup work in the studio the next morning - I deepened the dark of the landform of Bainbridge Island, as well as added a few more dark strokes to the foreground waves.  When I’d been working on it the previous evening, I had been working until after dark, and couldn’t really assess accurately some of the tones.  In the morning light, it was obvious that the silhouette of the far shore had dried a bit lighter than expected, so another wash was needed.