Works in Progress
This beautiful piece of property lies just across the road from Lange Winery in which Dave and Heidi Pasqualini plan to begin their dream of a vineyard in the heart of the Dundee Hills. To start, I did a pen and ink of the composition to illustrate the values. The helpful part here was the forward shadows. A photo usually darkens the shadows beyond their true value and since this was a large forward area, it had to be right.





I began the composition with Heidi's suggestion of a square format. The forward grasses are the dominant element since it is here that the new vineyard will be planted. The grand oaks provide a nice backdrop.

Beginning with the sky, I wanted to create breaking clouds with some light shining through from the west. I chose to use cobalt and burnt sienna to create the grey clouds and used the technique of letting the colors flow without the help of a brush to get those interlocking colors that can not be duplicated by any other medium.




The background is put into place creating the illusion of depth by greying down the trees and hills and reducing the amount of detail. A light wash of naples and raw sienna was used for the light wash for the forground.

Next come the oak trees which are dark and demand attention. It is here that positive and negative shapes are important. In other words, it is very important to look at what we are leaving when painting positive shapes. In this case, I have left out the trunks of some of the oak trees, to bring them out to the viewer.

I then built up the forground some more with raw sienna, quidacridone gold and burnt sienna.