Sunday, June 12, 2011

"DREAMFIELD" New, Original Oil Painting by Mike Callahan

"Dreamfield"
Oil on Canvas
24" x 30"
COMMISSION

My daughter is getting married soon and I told her she could have a painting...(I do have a few in the studio). Well, she's always had her own mind about what she wants and really didn't want any that I have already painted, so she shared with me her vision of what she wanted and commissioned me to paint this one. It's a little bit of a departure from my usual style, but I'm really pleased with how it came out - I really like the tonal quality.


3 comments:

Davin said...

Beautiful Painting Mike! I am a huge fan of your work. I'm pretty new to oil painting >1 year. Attempting a sky like the one you have done here would be pretty intimidating for me. Most of all, I think I would struggle to establish depth with a sky full of clouds. I typically use the size and detail of the clouds to establish that space. If you have a minute could you post a few comments on how you went about that? Great painting, I'm sure your daughter with love it!

Mike Callahan said...

Thanks Davin,
I started this painting like I usually do, with a toned canvas...I toned it a little more of a neutral color though since this painting was to be a bit monotone. I then painted the clouds directly using only Gamblin's Flake White Replacement. This paint is great for this because if you press down it really blends with the undertone and if apply it with a lighter hand it tends to cover well without picking up much undertone. I established all the major shapes of the clouds that way and then let it set up for a couple of days. At that point, I realized it was not bright enough as this sky is pretty high key, so I scumbled the entire sky with a mix of M. Graham's Zinc White, which is semi-transparent, and a fair amount of M. Graham's Oil/Alkyd medium. While that scumble was still wet, I then mixed a bright off white with a little (very little) sienna color and a lot of Titanium white and then painted the highlight areas of all the clouds. With the scumble still wet, it made it easy to blend the edges of the Titanium mix to whatever degree needed in the various areas to accentuate and unify all the shapes. I hope this helps!

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