Welcome Summer!

Memorial Day is the unofficial opening day of Summer and many head for the beach. I have only occasionally spent time by the sea (I seem to gravitate toward the mountains rather than the shore), and don't paint ocean pictures very often.  To paint the movement of waves and water convincingly one needs to study them and I have only seen the ocean once every few years. So, I don't feel like I have the same affinity for seascapes as I do for landscapes, but that doesn't mean I should avoid them.

This painting is one that comes from a series of sketches and photos that I took many years ago when I had the opportunity to visit the California coast.  Talk about dramatic beaches!!

Eroded Coastline   11 x 14

Painting on Memorial Day

On Memorial Day I think about my father and his brothers who all served in WWII defending our country and its liberties. They all came home, but reflecting on those who didn't reminds me that freedom isn't free.

This sketch is from my imagination, but it is a view like many I have seen and evokes memories of my mother's side of the family, many of whom eked out a living working hard on their patch of land. I used to visit each summer and for me these were magic days spent playing in the woods and fields, picking blackberries, eating ice cream.

A quick sketch (using a brush) on a toned canvas.

The initial wash of colors has a lot of turpentine thinner in it. After this I will use a painting medium, like copal, to thin the paint and make it flow easier. I always try to follow the "Fat over Lean" law to ensure good adhesion (more flexible layer should go over less flexible layer).

Cami's Yellow House   9" x 12"  

After the painting was finished I added the birds flying toward the house, low in the sky. I thought they added a bit of life and movement to the fairly empty scene. Cover them up with your thumb and you can see what a difference it makes.

En Plein Air

  This year I am exploring painting en plein air -"in the open air".

During the 19th century, when painting light became important to several schools of artists, there was a surge in the number of artists painting outdoors. Monet, Pissaro, Renoir, and other impressionists all advocated painting on the spot and the invention of tubed paints freed up artists from having to grind all their own pigments on the spot, causing an explosion in popularity. In America the plein air tradition is going strong and with new designs of portable easels and pochade boxes it is easier than ever to pack up your paints and head for the great outdoors. I made my own pochade box last month.

                                    

                                                           Painters painting painters painting outdoors.....huh?

                              

                                                               

But lest you think that all is sweetness and light, check out this hilarious (but so true) video made by a plein air artist during a painting excursion in the Sierra Nevada Mts - http://blip.tv/lipking/adventures-in-plein-air-painting-1438969

Regardless of the mayhem that may result, I will be out there and writing about it in future posts.

The Quality of Light

After visiting Arizona a little while ago, I now know why some artists so love painting out west. I could never understand it before. It's so barren, fewer and smaller trees, and the cool, blue-green mountains I  love are seldom to be found in the rocky landscape.

But there is something about the light. 

Perhaps because of the lack of moisture in the air, the skies seem bluer, the air clean and sharp. The boundaries between objects are clean and sharp, too. And you can see for miles! That light quality is beautiful to paint and opens up sharp colors and clear contrasts to the artist's eyes. I love it, too, now!

Thumb Butte Trail    11" x 14"

Painting Negative Space

Some painters (especially beginners) design their artworks thinking only of the objects they are portraying, but there is another element that must be considered. And that is the painting's negative space. Those spaces between the objects being painted are every bit as important as the objects themselves. Because these negative areas have boundaries, they also function as shapes in the total pictorial structure.

A good painting must function as a whole, with every shape, positive and negative, contributing to the total picture. 

I love "painting negatively" and here's a little study that is 90% negative shapes:

With a big wet brush, I scrubbed in a mixture of ultramarine blue, cad red, yellow ochre, and sap green. There are basically three different values, depending on the amount of thinner I mixed with the pigment.

A few more swipes with the brush to give a texture like evergreens and I start to paint negatively. White is the only other color I add to those I have used and with the same big brush (the canvas is only 9" x 12" so a #6 Flat is large in comparison) I begin to pick out some lighter areas in between the tree trunks. This also establishes the edge of the hill in the background.

Adding more white (but still far from pure white) I continue to break up the areas of color and refine shapes by painting around those shapes. The snow on the ground emerges at this stage.

Deep Forest Snow    9" x 12"

Final details are added with the lightest colors. No pure white was used, though, and the lightest areas have a little cad yellow added to warm it up. The only positive shapes added after the initial lay in of dark color are a few branches and twigs added to suggest a tangled forest. All other shapes I painted are negative shapes.

This is a great exercise to open up your eyes so that you see more when you look at a scene. Don't just look at the tree. Look at the spaces around the tree, the shapes between the twigs, the light shining between the leaves. Try it, it works!

Back Online with a New Painting.

Rainy Day at Cades Cove     11 x 14

One week with no phone or internet! Now I know how much info I get and disseminate online. Verizon finally deigned to come out today and fix my line, so I'm back and happy about it!

I normally tend to go for the strong sunlight and high contrast, so I set myself an assignment to try a softer, rainy day landscape. Here's the results. Soft edges and a narrower value range give the picture the feel of a cloudy day with lots of moisture in the air.

Cades Cove is in the Smoky Mountains.

Creating "Space"

Across the Field   6" x 8"

Space can be defined as "the interval or measurable distance between pre-established points". One of my desires is to create a feeling of three dimensional space within the picture frame (decorative space is for another time). I want the surface of the canvas to be where space starts, and then spreads out.

One way to give the illusion of space is by use of linear perspective, but because one of my favorite subjects is landscape, my main way of creating space is by use of aerial perspective. Aerial perspective can be created by position on the picture plane, overlapping, diminishing detail, and color changes.

I did the little painting above the other day and used all those methods to create a feeling of space. Objects lower on the picture plane appear closer (position). Objects which overlap appear closer (the trees along the wall overlap the field and the trees behind). Objects further away are softer, with less detail. 

But the area where I took the most artistic liberties is in the area of color changes. The scene was actually green, green, and more green! Painting it the way I saw it would have created a flat, boring picture, so I played with the color. Some general "rules" are: warm colors advance, cool colors recede....intense colors advance, grayed colors recede....light colors advance, dark colors recede.  Can you see how I used these ideas? And my green summer landscape became an autumn landscape (I love artistic license). Much more interesting.

Always bear in mind, though, that these "rules" may be broken as you gain skill and experience. Learn the rules first, then how to break them!

One Hour Painting

Some years ago I went on a cruise and visited the Caribbean. It was a feast of colors and light!

This little 6" x 8" oil sketch is done from a photo I took on that vacation and is my second try. The first was entirely too picky and I fussed with it for a couple of hours before I accepted the truth and filed it in the nearest trash.
This version only took an hour and I made a concerted effort to stay loose and use as few brush strokes as possible. I wanted to keep it fresh!

I also didn't use an underpainting, something which I always use. But I'm trying to branch out and do new things, hence no underpainting. OK, ok....It may not seem like a big change to you, but to one as entrenched in certain methods as I am it is a big concession. It's a start, anyway. A variety of techniques enhances the possibility of success and any tool I can add to my arsenal is welcome.

I would love to go back and paint on the spot, but considering the economic situation nowadays I don't see that happening. I can always hope, though.

Caribbean  6" x 8"

Keeping Me Humble....

Well, they don't always turn out to be masterpieces.
I knew this rule, I just hoped it didn't apply to me!

I used to struggle and keep going over and over a faltering painting trying to get it right, but have found that this only results (for me) in a stilted, belabored artwork. Not fresh or clean. One that I am never happy with. One that sits in the back of my mind haunting me.

I decided I wanted to see what would happen if I laid down a strong bright wash to paint on. Yellow is a color I don't use often (I lean toward ochres and oranges rather than yellow) so I decided to experiment.

All I could say when I saw this was, "My eyes!! My eyes!!"

After a few washes of color to block in the shapes, the yellow was still glaring and I was getting a headache.

Since I was having a hard time stepping up to the easel - the word "dread" comes to mind - I decided to be bold and wipe this image from the canvas, and hopefully, my mind.

I took a rag, dipped it in mineral spirits, and wiped the whole surface.

Then made a new sketch:

The horizon line is a tad lower and the whole thing feels better.......maybe that is just because the piercing yellow is gone.

I haven't given up on the idea of "yellow" so I decided to make the sky a yellow rather than the standard blue.

Add more color variations, but try to stay in the value range needed to convey space and shape.


Value: the lightness or darkness of a hue.

Space: Area within the paintings edges, specifically including depth...3D space.

Shape: created by use of color, value, edges.

Delaware Water Gap  11" x 14"

More color variations pushing the background further back and adding detail to the foreground.


This is a trail up in the Delaware Water Gap. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, though it is still a little "fussy".
( I'm still trying to loosen up.)








So, I have decided that after making a valiant effort and doing my best,  if the painting is still heading in a wrong direction I will simply discard it (or wipe away the image) and start fresh.
Nothing is wasted because I probably learned something...even if it is only what doesn't work... and more important is that I love to paint, so I enjoyed doing it. That is not a waste.

Weekend in NJ

This weekend was the Innovative Beads Expo in Edison, NJ, and I was there to peddle my wares. It's how I finance my artistic habit!

I had no idea, when I began to learn to bead, that there was a whole subculture of beading crafts that existed. I came away from my first visit to a bead show a little bit shell shocked and with a bad case of sensory overload. Who would have thought that there were so many different kinds of beads, or that some could be so expensive? But remember, for thousands of years beads were used as currency....currency of the realm, as it were.

I have several paintings half finished (I like to work on more than one at a time) but they will have wait till I can make more beads to replace the ones I sold (to be ready for the next show).

I can say that it is a little hard to keep my mind on polymer clay when I would rather be painting. But, since I don't have unlimited resources ($$) I need to take care of business. Later I will paint!

I'm off to make beads, now.