PAINTING VIDEOS BY ELLEN RICE

I paint with techniques I've developed over many years with trial and error that are roughly adapted from the old Master's style of doing many thin glazes of color, each of which must dry before going on to the next.

The first glazes I on this painting are underlying tones that I want to run all through the painting. I want the sky to have a lot of depth, and though blue, not cold, and this helps me achieve that. Up to this video there are at least five glazes in the sky and water.

The first glaze was a mixture of Alizarian Crimson and Windsor Red with white, applied translucently with the colors stronger where I want more depth. Two days later, after these glazes dried, I covered most of the canvas (minus the area where i wanted the marsh grass to be) in a translucent mixture of blues. I let the first layers of blues, Cerulean, French Ultramarine and Payne's Grey, dry. Then I glazed on still more blues. This was repeated, and will be repeated again as other parts of the painting develop.

After the sky and water were thoroughly dry again and I was satisfied that I had a good base, I began establishing the tree line on the horizon in shades of Payne's Grey and several shades of green. I used a favorite beat up fan brush, kind of jiggling along the horizon while looking out my studio window at a line of marsh and trees.

After a couple of days's drying time, I went back into the shadow areas of the trees with a darker mixture of Payne's grey and umber at the bottom of the them, then used a rubber pointed tool to remove thin lines of the fresh paint, leaving light areas that look like tree trunks.

Two days later, once again dry, I added a mixture of Naple's yellows and white as background colors for the marsh and for the sandy beach on the left. This takes you up to the work in this video. The next video will be voiced over so you don't have to read all this!

Ellen