Step by step hot air balloon painting

    The terrace is officially open for the Summer, the table and swing have been oiled, and the scaffolding from the neighboring construction site removed. Peace has mostly returned to our tree house like outdoor nook. There is something especially long about Austrian winters which leaves people longing for the sun and the outdoors. Dining al fresco is the obvious choice as soon as the weather allows, and we are outside as often as we can be. Breakfast on the terrace is a weekend and holiday must throughtout the summer and my husband, to whom a liesurly breakfast is integral to a holiday of any kind, can usually be found, newspaper in hand, long after everyone else has moved on.

Earlier this month, laptop already missing in action, I sat under the magnolia branches browsing an overpriced copy of Fine Art Connoisseur and sipping at my second cup of tea.

   Hyperrealism is a great temptation to many artists as it is a set of tricks that, being relatively easy, require mainly care, time and precision to creating the most astounding finished product. but althouth I love to try to do realistic illustrations my personnal taste in the type of art I like to see on my walls is more 'painterly', meaning it has rougher brushwork and less exactness. The balance between being precise and being suggestive is one which totters back and forth in my own work. And although I love to work over and over a rendering bringing out the smallest details and shadows, I found myself being attracted to the paintings in this magazine which were a bit 'sloppier'. And so, taking a black and white photo to keep myself from obsessing over colour, I began to block in the basic shapes and layout of the picture I was using as inspiration. Working quickly and primarily with a dry brush I added a layer of clouds, mountains, tree covered hills and then grassy slopes. The pallette became an imagined one, based more on my concept of summer than on any actual landscape.

   Stepping back from the canvas after numberous layers and touch ups I decided to call it done. All pictures that are officially finished are moved into my diningroom to be viewed for a few days so that any obvious problems can present themselves to my subconcious mind. This one needed less than an hour for me to realize how boring it was. And after a bit of contemplation I decided to add a hot air balloon, just lifting of the ground. I associate hot air balloons with one set of grandparents whom I had been thinking about recently. Thus I began cutting out pieces of paper to get a basic idea of how big I wanted the balloon to be and where I would place it. This is the material and time intensive way to paint a picture, sketching it out first saves both.

The picture needed both a focal point and a bright complimentary color scheme. and so I chose a pallette that my husband later described as looking more like a pumpkin than a balloon.



To reduce the pumpkin like impression I added ropes and a net in red- I did not further develop this in later stages as I am looking for a suggestion rather than a concrete form. I also began to deepen the shades of the balloon itself.

Adding a lot more red, marroon, and even prussian blue to the balloon I have arrived at the next 'finished' stage. (I also highlighted the hills and mountains a bit). 

At the moment the highest point that it can stand is above my stove where the balloon hovers just above my line of sight, exactly where it ought to be. I think it is done but who knows, if anything else jumps out at me I may put it back on the easel again. I hope not!

 

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