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Oil Painting #13
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John O'Keefe
"View from Hunter Mountain"
(Oil Painting #13)




I was approached by my Uncle who wanted to commission a painting for his home. He wanted a landscape that would have colors that complimented a new wallpaper he was purchasing. I sorted through various photographs that Jennifer and I had taken during our many day-trips around Connecticut. I found a combination of scenes that I built into the following scene. First: I cropped a shot we had taken from Gillette Castle while looking out over the Connecitcut River. Second: I took a cloud scene that I felt enhanced the river scene and matched the wallpaper sample. Third: I cropped and added a tree to the left side of the composition to give it that Hudson River School feel. I sent this composite image to my Uncle and he loved it... at first.


Connecticut River scene compilation - initial composition

My Uncle wanted to make the painting more personal so he sent me a photograph that he took from atop Hunter Mountain in upstate New York. I looked at the photo for a while but questioned the rocks to the left of the picture. After talking with him about how I felt the rocks took away from the scene, he agreed it might not make the best painting and said that another photo would be coming soon. Below is the original photo from Hunter Mountain that we decided not to use.


View from Hunter Mountain - intermediate composition 1

Here is a cropped portion of the second photograph from Hunter Mountain. Its another view from atop Hunter Mountain. This photograph is untouched with respect to color adjustments - the only thing I did was crop it to have the big tree off to the right side of the painting. We agreed this would be the layout of the painting. However, I later realized that the sky was missing and we lost our color connection to the wallpaper sample.


View from Hunter Mountain - intermediate composition 2

Here is the full scale of the final photograph. I restored the full scene and applied color adjustments to match the blues in the sky to the blue in the wallpaper sample. This image was sent to him for review and he approved it. We had our final composition. My Uncle also sent me a frame that belonged to his mother (my grandmother) and we special ordered a canvas to fit it. The final size of the canvas is 18 x 30 inches.


View from Hunter Mountain - FINAL COMPOSITION!




Support:
Stretch Fine Linen - Oil Primed

Size:
18x30 inch

Medium:
Winsor & Newton 'Artist Oils'
Ivory Black
Titanium White
Corelian Blue
Sap Green
Naples Yellow
Raw Sienna
Burnt Sienna
Vandyke Brown

Finish:
None




COMING SOON







Oil #13
"View from Hunter Mountain"
18 x 30 inch (48.7 x 76.2 cm)
Oil on Linen
John O'Keefe

IN PROGRESS!



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