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About Susan
I have been painting for 15 years and have studied under four very talented artists. They are Aline Ordman, Carole Watanabe, Suzanne Edminster and Susan Stover. I mostly paint with oil but work in acrylic and encaustic mediums and styles from realism to the abstract and impressionism.
© 2023 | Susan Bradford Painting | All images on this website are owned by Susan Bradford
The Importance Of Temperature
One of the aspects of color is temperature, the others being hue, value and intensity. Generally the darker colors, violet through green on the color wheel are cool and the colors red through yellow green are warm. I recently set up this still life of roses from my yard in a crystal vase on a white table cloth. The original painting is the first one. Everything in the painting is cool except for the roses and one yellow green leaf. Looking at it for awhile I thought it needed some warmth. I mixed a little cadmium yellow light with white to give a pale yellow table cloth.This warmed up the painting considerably. Also the yellow table cloth and the violet crystal vase are compliments on the color wheel so go well together. The blue background and the orange-pink roses are also compliments on the color wheel and go well together.
Canyonlands National Park
This last summer I traveled to Utah to see Canyonlands and Arches National Parks. Even though they are only a few miles from each other they are very different. Canyonlands is huge, over 500 square miles. you can only drive into a small part of it but it is very majestic. Its where the Green River and the Colorado River meets and then that confluence goes onto the Grand Canyon.
My palette is Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light, and Titanium White. I use Gamblin oil paint and mix all my colors. I wasn’t going to paint the two national parks as it all seemed so surreal but decided to paint one of each.
Sebastopol Vineyards
Recently I have been in the Vineyards here in Sebastopol capturing them in their beautiful fall colors and doing very large plein air paintings which is very challenging especially in this long format. I have to adjust my easel so the bottom of the painting is almost on the ground and therefore I can work on the top of the painting. Then I can move the painting up to paint the rest of it. I use Gamblin Oil paint and my palette for this painting was cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red medium, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White. I mix all my colors and I used very large brushes to be able to paint such a large canvas in a couple of hours. Of course I worked on it in my studio at home later.
Sonoma County Vineyards
I’ve been painting in the Sonoma County vineyards this fall to capture the fall colors and to try and do plein air with large canvasses. This is about 2 miles from my house on Gravenstein Highway and Oak Grove avenue. My palette is Cobalt blue, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium yellow light and Titanium white. I use Gamblin oil paints and mix all my colors.
Christmas Card
I have printed up some large Christmas cards from one of my paintings “A Christmas Story”, 16 x 20, Oil. I painted this still life last Christmas with my Friday group. I love the painting so much that I decided to have Christmas cards made. Its a large card with a white border around the card. The card is 6 inches by 8 inches and comes with an envelope. It says Merry Christmas and Happy New Year inside.
If you are interested in purchasing them they are $8 each or $35 for 5. You can contact me if you would like to purchase them. susanbradforddesigns@charter.net or you can text me at 802-371-8236.
Bodega Bay
This is a recent plein air painting I painted of Bodega Bay. I was painting the marshland when an egret came into my painting and stood there so I put him or her in. My palette is Cobalt blue, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White. I use Gamblin paint and I mix all my colors.
Eight Paintings from Monhegan Island, Maine painted 8/21-8/27
I was lucky enough to spend a week on Monhegan Island, Maine in August and painted nine paintings in seven days. My palette is Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White. I use Gamblin paint. There are no cars on the Island so one has to walk everywhere with their supplies. It was a tremendous experience and I hope to go their again next year.
Cypress Tree
A few weeks ago I plein air painted in the town of Sonoma and I spotted this very old but beautiful Cypress Tree. My palette for this painting is Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Red Medium, Cadmium Yellow Light and Titanium White. I use Gamblin Oil paint. So all of these primaries are warm and I know you are supposed to use a combination of warms and cools but I chose all warm for this palette. I like this painting and it doesn’t bother me that it is all warm. Maybe its a good thing for the dying tree. I always have one of primaries cool and the other two warm so I wanted to try something different.
Sonoma Stream
A recent plein painting painted in the town of Sonoma, Ca. My palette is Cadmium red light, Cobalt blue, Cadmium yellow light and Titanium White. A gorgeous day of painting with my friend of this beautiful little stream on a large dairy farm in Sonoma.
Laguna de Santa Rosa
I actually painted this from a photo that I took the day before. Weather was good that day but not good on our usual plein air painting day of Friday. Its along Schoolhouse Road between Analy High School and Occidental Road here in Sebastopol, CA. There is a large dairy farm on the road and lots of fields with cows along the Laguna de Santa Rosa. My palette for this painting is phthalo blue, Cadmium yellow light, Cadmium red light and Titanium white. I use Gamblin oil paint and mix all of my colors with the three colors.