"The Local"

"The Local"
By James Swanson/ Traveler Eric
16"x 20" Oil on Canvas

See the painting step for this painting journey.

Yellowstone might have the bears, but Scotland has the sheep. Not baaad!

It's pretty common where I live to go out for a walk and come across a dog or cat, but what if you ran into sheep or cattle? Hillwalkers in Scotland are use to seeing them, in fact they are the locals of the area and the walkers are the tourists.

All photos are Traveler Eric's

On a slope of a mountain in Scotland, is where we meet up with are old friend Traveler Eric again. I was trying not to paint any more of Eric's photos for a while, but a couple of paintings still have some work to do to them, so here's Eric.

Traveler Eric

Traveler Eric Story:

Buachaille Etive Mor - Scotland

This is a wonderful hike. You get to climb several peaks; get impressive views (weather permitting) and the climbing is really quite easy. The initial ascent up the gully is short and steep but it isn't really dangerous; it just looks that way.

The slowest part was taking the trail down into the valley and hiking back to the road. It's a swampy low level walk thru the glen.

Cloud did blow in within seconds. When we climbed the first peak I was racing to get pictures before we were socked in clouds. The cloud came and went quickly and after another hour the clouds lifted and we had a hot sunny day; very unusual on our trip!

The photo that I will be using.

Traveler Painting "The Local" When I come across good Travelers for this painting series, it's like striking gold for me, and Traveler Eric is a gold mine. He loves his hikes and he takes plenty of photos to document where he has been. This photo that I chose is the start of the animal section of this journey.

The Sketch: As always I plan the trip that I'm going to take. The photo of Eric's already had a good design to it. All I had to do break it down what it was and stick it in my head.

The sketch on Canvas: I rubbed in thinned out paint into the canvas to rid my self of the white blank sheet. I rubbed in a mixture of Venation Red and Brunt Umber, and then pulled out the lighter spots the painting.

Adding the darks first. This helps put the structure of the painting in place.

Starting to block in the painting. I 'm trying to capture the depth in the photo. The greens were a bit tricky. Getting them to lay down right took a bit of trial and error in the paint mixing.

Putting in the far background and sky. It's all blocked in and the colors are harmonizing pretty pretty well.

Painters Tip: Getting color harmony in a painting is one of the most important things for a successful painting. Your colors have too have a relationship with each other, and work together. I start at the palette for this relationship. I work out the colors ahead of time there, before I touch the canvas with a brush. When you have most of the colors that you need for the painting mixed on your palette, squint your eyes and to see how they work. If a color jumps way out at you, it's probably a wrong color.

The Sheep. I've been painting everything in this picture but the main focal point. I wanted to have everything ready for this guest before I put him in.

There are rocks everywhere in the foreground, but I didn't want to noodle them out or to noodle out the sheep. They needed to be painted in the same manor as the background. There will be a lot of knife work done for the details, that way I can't miss paint our friend.

Done, that's it. Not too baaad. (Bad joke again) In the detail pictures of the painting all the brush strokes should show through.

Details of the painting.

"The Local"
By James Swanson/ Traveler Eric
16"x 20" Oil on Canvas

Scotland sure has some great walks, and it doesn't matter if you travel by two feet or four to enjoy them. I want to thank Eric again for being such a good Traveler and for his photos. I am always looking for new travelers for this series if you are interested email me here or contact me at theartistandthetraveler.org

Well, I'm off to talk to some new Travelers, thanks for looking in and see ya on down the road. Ta Ta for Now.