Painting on Location
by Donald A. Jusko

Jacaranda Trees
Kula, Maui, 4-11-3

22x30 Acrylic on Panel

Day 1, Ready to paint, the plastic cover is still on the panel,
the retical is set up on my camera tripod.


painting setup

This is a close up of what Van Gogh called a retical.
His was on a post that stuck in the ground at standing height.
You can see the threads dividing quarters. My retical is
over the top of the painting. Neither of us really needed it.

reticulator


Day 1,
The grid lines are drawn in charcoal to match the threads of the reticulator.
Charcoal is also used to draw in the image and a chamois erases it clean. If this painting were in oil paint I would just start painting.
charcoal drawing
Day 1, the lines of charcoal are painted over with Burnt Umber and Liquitex Fluid Medium instead of using water to dilute the paint. It's a stronger bond to the support than water only.
Nothing moves while the support is washed free of charcoal.
paint lines

The whole painting was given a coat of jar white acrylic, spread thinly. This gives a smoother surface that receives washes nicely, plus, if I leave any spaces uncovered with new paint the gesso will still have real paint over it.
White wash
Day 2, 

I painted the sky in over the trees line drawing, repainted the basic tree limbs and trunks and added enough color to get me started.

end of day 2

Day 3,  Corrected all of yesterdays errors with white from 10 to 11:30.

Adding smaller tree branches now, I want to get a lot of them. I can always block out the areas of branches that have leaves over them. I paint a tree in 3 area parts; the inside back of the shell, the middle area with the branches and the front, the outside foreground shell of leaves or flowers. I will add more to the back area next. By jumping between the back shell colors and middle branches the tree takes shape.

The texture of the small flowers is small , too small for just a brush. I grabbed a sponge and picked pieces out of it until I had a nice veritable surface and started dabbing, sky color over solid purple areas and purple flowers over the sky.
I try not to make the dabs look like obvious sponge work by coming behind with a brush. That was done by 2:00.

I'll work over the whole picture now, this is the light I want, in the afternoon, the light coming from the right

3:00 I'm definitely at that "everything's a mess" stage but at least I have a 100% coverage. That usually means I'm 1/2 way finished.
It was raining flowers so hard , 3 of them landed between my glasses and my face during the day.
At 5:00 I added the sun to the branches.

Day 3, 3:00
Day 4 and 5,
Day 5, What a day! I decided the time for the color in this painting was in the late afternoon. So, this morning I started another painting. I saw a church last week at 7:00 in the morning and the morning light was fantastic. It's a light yellow building with bright sunlight on it. I made a note to paint it the next chance I got. Well this is it. So I spent 4 hours drawing it this morning. Now I have a 7 to 11 and a 12 to 5. They are only 25 minutes apart and I'll be staying at a friends between the two. Expect perfection, it happens all the time!
Day 8,
Day 8
Jacaranda Flowers all around me.
Flowers in the street
Day 9, finished, except maybe the road.

Day 9

Day 11, I needed some power. This tree, a week later, today, was finished. The flowers were down to 10 %, but I could see the trees branches a lot clearer and could tell were the bunches were.

Finished
Finished

NEXT PAINTING, St. James the Less Church, Ulupalakua
PREVIOUS PAINTING, Water Color, Yellow Tea Pot

allaboutcolorcourse.htm  | Index to all painting links  | RGB-CYMK Hexadecimal Codes

Jacaranda Paintings from 2002 to 2012
5-20-2 Early Spring Jacaranda Acrylic, jacaranda.htm
6-5-2 Highest Jacaranda 4,000 Ft. Oil, jacaranda2.htm
6-15-2 Jacaranda and Driveway 3,500 Ft. Oil, jacaranda3.htm
3-21-3 Silver Oak and Jacarandas 2,000 Ft. Acrylic, silveroakjacaranda.htm
#897 4-24-3 one Acrylic three Knife Oils, jacarandakeokea.htm
4-29-3 to 5-7-3 Oil, paintingknife.htm
4-11-3 Acrylic 30x22, jacarandakula2003.htm
5-21-3 3,000 Ft. Acrylic, jacarandalong.htm
June, 2005, Kula, Copal Medium, Oil Medium, Water Color Medium, jaca05jun.htm
5-22-3 Knife Paintings Oil, jacaranda5.htm
5-27-03 /acrylic, keokeachurch.htm
4-26-5 mastic and wax, jacaranda1st2005.htm
May 2005, 2 Oil, 1 Mastic and Wax, 2 watercolors, jacaranda2nd2005pg2.htm
4-26-6 Mike's house Acrylic, jacarandamike2006.htm
4-29-7 to 5-9-7 Oil, jacarandacentury2007.htm
5-10-7 to 5-20-7 Holy Ghost Church Acrylic, jacarandaholy2007.htm
5-10-7 to 5-20-7 Kula Post Office Jacaranda Acrylic, jacarandakulapostoffice2007.htm
Jacaranda Seabury Hall 2008, Maui, HI, jaca2008SeaBgym.htm
Jacaranda at Makawao Library, Maui, HI, #951, 2008, jacaranda2008makaLibrary.htm
2009 Jacaranda Lower Kula, jacaranda2009lowerkula.htm
Javaranda at Makawao Post Office, w/c 2010, Jacaranda2010MakawaoPO3color.htm
Jacaranda and Bougainvillea, w/c, Lower Kula Hwy, #975, 2010, Jacaranda2010bogi.htm
5-10-11, 5 WC's, Jacaranda, Lower Kula Hwy, jacaranda2011wc.htm
5-20-11, 3 Jacarandas, Upper Kula Hwy, Chem-trail, Makawao Liquor Shack, jacaranda2011acr.htm
3-3-12, Jacaranda, 2012, Lower Kula Rd, acrylic, #984, jacaranda2012.htm


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