Dusk In A Ravaged Land

Dusk In A Ravaged Land

24 x 24"

oil on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2019

available at Assiniboia Gallery

This one is another spin-off from a 6x6 I produced in my daily painting project. The other one I painted was a slightly altered composition to accommodate a rectangular format. Both of these were done on boards.

The effect of the sky on this one gave me a hard time. It's funny how simple things like moving from a hard, smooth surface of a board to a bouncy, textured surface of a canvas can affect my approach. Or maybe it's more about the prep of the surfaces. I sealed the boards with a clear-coat so the colour of the board is what I built the painting on. I never paint on a white canvas, so in this case I put on a coat of orange/peach gesso over the surface before I started painting.

The orange gesso looked great with the under-painting! So much so that I tried to keep the effect by mixing mostly orange and orangish-yellow oils to paint the sky. Unfortunately it didn't translate and just felt dark, like there was no light in the sky. The mood from the under-painting and gesso was lost. 

In an effort to salvage the painting, I started making changes and probably re-painted the sky four times until I was finally happy. 

Lessons are learned every time I am at my easel.