An example of the type of step study that will be featured in my new book, "Mondays with Camille" and Everything Else you Didn't Learn in Art School about Color," due out November 2013.
Here is a gray day landscape study.
When I have been asked how I am able to get the light effects, I quote Charles Hawthorne (Hawthorne on Painting), "It is beautifully simple, painting — all we have to do is to get the color notes in their proper relation."
This is what I try to do — decide which color note I can see most clearly, put that first color note down quickly, and then that note becomes the key to my whole painting because everything else is related to it.
When I have been asked how I am able to get the light effects, I quote Charles Hawthorne (Hawthorne on Painting), "It is beautifully simple, painting — all we have to do is to get the color notes in their proper relation."
This is what I try to do — decide which color note I can see most clearly, put that first color note down quickly, and then that note becomes the key to my whole painting because everything else is related to it.
 Actual Scene, in Petaluma, CA |  First Note |  Step One |
 Step Two |  Step Three |
The sky is the lightest and warmest in this scene so I started the color of the sky near the horizon with a warm pink -- slightly lighter in value than the cooler and darker top part of the sky. The warmth in the foreground brings the grass forward. The water was seen as warmer than the top part of the sky.
Finished Painting "Sun Streak" 8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas
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