For this painting, I knew that the powerful value contrast was very important. I wanted to keep the colors muted (staying in the grey and brown range) and exaggerate the values. So I did a value comp in Photoshop [...]
January 27, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
January 25, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
So, at this time of year, like many others, I start planning my year and make new year’s resolutions. This year, I decided to make 1 career goal and 1 personal goal [...]
January 10, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
For the alla prima wet-into-wet oil painter - I recommend putting 1-2 drops of Clove Oil on each color on your palette when you’re working on a longer studio painting. This will slow down the dry time of the oil paint.
January 4, 2010 – By Stan Prokopenko
It’s finally finished! Feels good to close this chapter, since I put so much time and effort into it. Scaling up to 24 x 36 from a 4 x 6 color comp was a bit tricky [...]
December 15, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
A few days ago I was every excited to find that all the paintings can be viewed online for the 2010 Masters of the West show at the Autry Museum [...]
December 9, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
One of the best things about painting a landscape is that it’s not a portrait. You have a lot more freedom to change shapes and move things around. As soon as I realized that I don’t have to get every shape the right size and in the right place, I loosened up and started designing my own shapes [...]
November 28, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
The zoo trip turned out to be a great success! The bears were very active, giving me many angles and poses to choose from. I ended up with almost 400 photos [...]
November 24, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
My main focus with this color comp was the sunlight coming through the trees creating a glow. I wanted to transition from warm trees on the left to cooler trees on the right. Also, wanted the rim light on the rocks to be believable [...]
November 20, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
At first glance, the photo reference is overwhelming. There’s a lot of stuff going on and all the trees blend together. So, I felt it was important for me to study the shapes in more detail and redesign some for a simpler and more powerful effect [...]
November 18, 2009 – By Stan Prokopenko
I started preparing by doing a comp of the major value break down of the painting. At this point I’m thinking of separating the foreground, middle ground, and background [...]
