Tag: Landscapes

Last evening’s sunset was another rich tapestry of colors.  Mostly, I wanted to capture the delicious lavender colors in the sky, accented by pinks and yellows.

More and more, I’m introducing intense colors and odd juxtapositions as I see them.

Sketches – including this one – look absolutely amazing at 30 feet.  Up close… the magic seems to evaporate and it’s just paint… areas of color and texture.

It’s an interesting phenomenon, somewhere in-between Impressionism and something better described in abstract terms.

I’m also realizing the importance of impression-based paintings.  Even the camera cannot capture the nuances of color and contrast.  The following photo was taken shortly after I started my sketch, and… well, you can see how much the photo lacks, compared with the painting.

The painting is on an 11″ x 14″ canvas, and the medium is oil paint.

This is one of my few recent oil sketches.  That’s partly because the skies have been either overcast or cloud-free, and not very interesting for my approach to landscapes.

Also, the past few weeks have been a little somber for me.  Last Friday (March 11th) was my late mother’s birthday. I’m still getting used to the idea that she’s gone. In a way, I guess I thought she’d always be around, even after she turned 90.

But, of course, that wasn’t realistic. I kind of hate that, but there it is. And sometimes art is my way of processing things.

Sometimes it’s sort of like “sitting shiva,” and I think that’s important.

However, there are days when I must pick up the paintbrush, and this sketch represents one of them.  It’s a 9″ x 12″ oil sketch on canvas board.

The colors were rich and juicy and they were reflected in the snow that was still on the ground. I know my mom – also an artist – would have liked this.

The wooded landscape across the street from our home is intriguing.

It offers such depth, I haven’t been quite sure how to capture the trees as well as the colorful skies behind them, especially in the afternoon.

In early January, I tried a quick sketch in oils.  That’s it on the lower right.

It was an okay sketch, but nothing great.

Two weeks ago, during an experiment with eBay art auctions, I decided to try selling that sketch for $5.  My thought was, “It’s an original oil painting.  A real one.  Surely it’s worth as much as a meal at McD’s.”

Well, it didn’t sell.  Pout.

So, on Sunday afternoon (13 Feb 2011), I decided to paint over it.  The colors were good and I wanted to keep the general composition, but I could see that it needed more oomph.

Previously, I’d painted the same scene with a slightly different technique.  (That’s Sunlight in the Trees – 11 Feb 2011.)  I really liked how that one turned out.

The earlier tree sketch, displayed nearby… well, it just looked silly in contrast.  I wasn’t happy with it.

So, I placed the January sketch (shown at right) on my easel and began some radical revisions.

I wasn’t going to paint over the whole sketch… just improve it.

My plan was to try the opposite of my Sunlight in the Trees technique: That is, I’d paint the light first, and then paint the trees over it.

I started with the snow in the foreground.  That needed more light and color.  I painted over the lower tree trunks and the snow.

After that, I worked on the sky… more variety to the color, and generally more white.

Next, I scrubbed in greens and blues with some orange-ish accents, to suggest the hills in the background.

At that point, all I had left from the original work were the upper portion of  the tree trunks.  I wanted to leave most of them as references, since I’d planned to restore their branches after the background colors dried.

(If you compare the two versions of this painting, you may see the same tree trunks in both.  All I did was shorten them and alter the contrast in the current revision.)

However, as I brought the hill colors down to the tree trunks and started filling in the glow of the sun as it set… well, a different vista emerged… a fantasy landscape.

The hills became the trees, and I emphasized the varied treetops.  I also added contrast and light.  Alternately, I’d blob colors on with a bristle brush, and then smooth it into the landscape with a (soft) sable brush.

I began to fall in love with this revised painting, shown at the top of this article.

Though the painting isn’t completed yet, I’m pleased enough to post it here and show you how it’s evolving.

This also reveals the way that one painting (Sunlight in the Trees) can influence other, related artwork.

This tree sketch is an 8″ x 10″ oil painting on canvas board, and it’s the latest in my “Evolution” series in which I paint over parts of existing works — often making radical revisions — to improve them.

Lately, I’m drawn to the wooded landscape on one side of our home.

During the afternoons, the sunlight gleams through the trees.  Often, it’s almost a pure white light, with just a hint of yellow.

It can be so bright, I have to look away almost immediately.

However, the shadows — especially on a snowy day — are shades of blue and lavender, yellow and orange.

Last Friday afternoon, I decided to see if I could capture this image on canvas.

The painting is an 8″ x 10″ oil landscape on archival canvas board.  The paint is fairly thick, as I painted the trees first and then painted the light over them.  In a way, that’s how the light looks: As if it’s in the foreground and the trees are in back of it.

This is a rich, juicy painting with lots of texture and color.  For me, it captures the intensity of the light and the landscape, and the nuances of subtle color in the snow.

After reading Whistler’s defense of his Nocturne series*, I was inspired to paint exactly what I saw outside my living room, after dark.

The sketch isn’t elegant or detailed, but it does convey the impression of the scene that night.

My husband commented that it was probably the best that streetlight had ever looked.

Okay, it wasn’t quite night.  Late in the day, snow clouds loomed like huge, dark, angry dust bunnies across the horizon.   It looked like night, so the streetlights turned on automatically.

A patch of light sky remained, and it’s at the upper right corner of the painting.  The light from it highlighted the snow toward the foreground.

All in all, it was a very moody scene and it reminded me of Wuthering Heights: Dangerous, windy, and wild.

I’m still trying to tweak the color in this photo, because it’s not quite accurate when I compare it with the painting.  However, it conveys the general idea of this sketch.

For me, this was one of those paintings that I couldn’t not paint.  I saw the yellow-orange glow of the lstreetlight and the blues and purples in the scene, and I was almost irresistibly drawn to my easel.

Fortunately, my paints were already set up so I could capture this landscape quickly.

I like it.  It’s moody and urgent at the same time. This is a small work, 8″ x 10″ painted in oils on canvas board.

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*From the trial in which Whistler sued critic John Ruskin for libel (after Ruskin published harsh criticism of a painting in Whistler’s Nocturne series, shown at right):

Holker: “What is the subject of Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket?”
Whistler: “It is a night piece and represents the fireworks at Cremorne Gardens.”
Holker: “Not a view of Cremorne?”
Whistler: “If it were A View of Cremorne it would certainly bring about nothing but disappointment on the part of the beholders. It is an artistic arrangement. That is why I call it a nocturne….”
Holker: “Did it take you much time to paint the Nocturne in Black and Gold? How soon did you knock it off?”
Whistler: “Oh, I ‘knock one off’ possibly in a couple of days – one day to do the work and another to finish it…” [the painting measures 24 3/4 x 18 3/8 inches]
Holker: “The labour of two days is that for which you ask two hundred guineas?”
Whistler: “No, I ask it for the knowledge I have gained in the work of a lifetime.”