Summer Storm (Over the Paddock) 5x7

I returned to this 5" x 7" painting after a two-month interval, which presented several technical and conceptual challenges worth examining.

The Problem of Time in Oil Painting

Working over a dry underpainting after an extended period reveals certain fundamental issues in my process. The linseed oil I used in the initial layers has created complications that I've been encountering repeatedly.

This suggests a systematic problem rather than an isolated incident—something that requires addressing at the foundational level of my technique.

When you approach a painting after months away, you're meeting a different work than the one you left. The painting has settled into itself, and your relationship to it has changed. The question becomes whether to fight this or embrace it.

Compositional Adaptation

In this session, I chose adaptation. Elements that had shifted from my original reference—the tree that appeared too dark, the compositional relationships that no longer matched my initial vision—became opportunities rather than problems.

This reflects a broader principle in landscape painting: the work itself often knows better than our preconceptions what it needs to become.

Technical Observations

Working without pre-mixied colors, I built relationships directly on the board—whites and yellow ochres creating the foundation, with grays and mixing reds to balance the inevitable drift toward green that occurs in landscape work.

The goal became achieving colors that were "like the board color" - a deceptively simple type of mixing that encompasses much of what Tonalist painting attempts to accomplish.

The Value of Process Documentation

I've included the complete transcript of this working session below. These records serve multiple purposes: they document the actual thinking process behind painting, and the mundane technical considerations that rarely make it into finished discussions of painting, and they preserve the real-time problem-solving that constitutes much of what we actually do as painters.

The transcript captures not just the successful moments but the uncertainties, the material limitations (running out of preferred paint brands), and the constant micro-decisions that accumulate into a finished work.

Full Session Transcript

So I'm back to this painting after about two months. It's been sitting here and I'm looking at it now thinking about what I want to do with it. The underpainting has dried completely, which creates some challenges—particularly with the linseed oil I used initially to oil out the painting. This is becoming a recurring issue in my process.

Looking at the composition, I'm noticing things have shifted from my original reference. The tree appears quite dark now, and rather than fight it, I think I'll embrace that darkness. Sometimes the painting tells you what it wants to become.

I'm going to work without pre-mixing colors today, which I don't usually do, but it might speed things up. Starting with white and yellow ochre as my foundation, building the relationships directly on the canvas.

The sky needs work—I want to get that sense of atmosphere, that storm quality. Working with my grays, adding some mixing red to balance out the greens that always want to creep in. The challenge is achieving colors that are almost just like the board color—sounds simple but it's where much of the subtlety lives.

I'm being careful working over this dry surface. There's a milky quality to the lighting that can happen with the lighting and camera. The linseed oil issue is definitely something I need to reconsider for future underpaintings.

The tree mass is becoming quite dominant now. I'm letting it be dark, darker than the reference, because that's what this particular painting seems to want. The leaves going up off the top—I don't like that repetition, especially having just painted something similar earlier this week.

Working the sky transitions now, using blue but modifying it heavily with gray to make it more forgiving. Adding burnt sienna to earth up some of these tones. The goal is harmony, everything working together rather than individual elements fighting for attention.

I'm running low on my preferred Mars black and having to use a different brand, which changes the mixing slightly. These material considerations are part of the reality of painting—you adapt to what you have.

The brushwork is staying loose, working at this smaller scale allows for a different kind of mark-making. I'm thinking about shapes and relationships rather than getting caught up in details.

As I step back and look at this now, I can see how the two-month break has actually helped. Sometimes distance gives you perspective on what a painting requires. The storm quality is emerging, that sense of atmospheric weight that I was seeking.

The painting is teaching me something about my process, about the materials I use, about embracing unexpected developments rather than fighting them. That's the value in documenting these sessions—capturing not just the successes but the problem-solving, the adaptation, the real work of painting.

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