Tag: Landscapes

When I looked out the window this morning, the sky was a mix of pinks, blues, whites and yellows.  Snow is on the way.

The colors were vivid for a very brief time… maybe four minutes.  They faded within seconds.  I dashed to my easel and quickly scrubbed in the colors while they were fresh in my memory.

I’m pleased with the colors.  They convey the soft drama of the rural NH landscape, from the fading grasses to the blue-grey hills and mountains to the blustery skies.

It’s been awhile since I made time for these early morning oil sketches.  I need to get back in the habit of capturing colors as I see them.  I have some more formal paintings in mind, and — after I finish the White Mountains painting I’m working on — these color references will be important.

This sketch is on 8″ x 16″ canvasboard with my usual underpainting of cadmium red.

I’m painting with an Ott light for accurate color; the light has a flexible neck so I can angle it “just so” for my work.

Then, I photograph the completed sketches in natural light by our patio door.

The best view from our home is through the sliding glass doors in our living room.

Unfortunately, that’s also the hottest room in the summer, so – without a/c (typical in this part of NH) – it’s no fun to paint there.

However, once the cooler weather returns, I’m ready to pick up my paintbrush again.  That was the case this week.

I kept looking at last night’s sunset, wondering if I had time to set up my palette and easel, and still have time to capture the colors.

Well… I almost did.  During the last half of the painting, I was working with very low lighting.

(Artificial light affects color perception, and I can misjudge which colors to use.  However, working in the dark isn’t much better.)

This morning, when the sun was bright enough to see what I’d painted, I wasn’t sure if I’d need to make some major changes in the work.

I’m very pleased with this oil sketch.  The paint is very thick in some areas, so this will take about three weeks to dry.

The painting is 12″ x 12″ and it’s oil paint on canvas board. It’s in a private collection.

Generally, sunsets aren’t colorful right now.  Last night was an exception.  The longer I painted (and the darker the skies became), the more brilliant the colors and contrasts in the sky.

In fact, I tried to paint a second sketch after this one, but it was so dark outside, I couldn’t see what I was doing, and quickly gave up.

I wasn’t even sure that the first oil sketch (shown here) caught the colors accurately.  (Artificial light – even “full spectrum” lighting – rarely shows how the colors will look in daylight.)

This morning, I could hardly wait for daylight, to see how this painting turned out.

I’m pleased.  This captured the early colors of the sunset, and how vivid the grass looked in contrast with the peachy-magenta colors as the slipped below the horizon.

We’re expecting record-breaking high temperatures this afternoon, and I’m hoping they’ll bring another spectacular sunset.  This time, my palette and easel are all ready, so I can work quickly while the daylight lasts.

I’m ambivalent about spring.  Oh, I love the warmer weather.  New England winters are lovely to look at… through a window! The other three seasons are among the reasons that we live here.

Anyway, as an artist, I’ve noticed that winter and summer are when the clouds are most dramatic at sunrise.

As spring approaches, the skies are more… well, suited to watercolor.  (That’d be fine, except that I’m not suited to watercolor.  I’ve taken endless classes, and… nope, that’s not a medium that flows — no pun intended — for me.)

So, I cross my fingers each day, hoping to see delicious clouds and juicy contrasts as the sun comes up.  That’s when I’m likely to paint more oil sketches from my living room window.

However, I’m realizing that we’re moving out of that time of year.

Oh, I’m pleased with this morning’s color study.  (A detail from it is below, on the left.)  However, I’m not seeing the vivid colors and stark light-and-dark of winter sunrises.

It’s not that I’m unhappy with the colors right now.  I’m just not as inspired by them.

The good news is, I can shift gears.  I have so many wonderful oil sketches from the past couple of weeks, I can use them as the basis of larger, semi-abstract paintings that represent those same scenes.

That is exciting!

The morning sketches served three purposes.  First, they restored the thrill of painting, and especially painting landscapes.  Second, they restored my self-confidence, that had eroded a bit over the past year.  Finally, these sketches give me the references I need to work on larger, more dramatic works.

So, though I may not continue daily oil sketches (based on the subject outside my window), I’m still painting.   Most days, I will at least work on a larger landscape, either semi-abstract or Tonalist.

When the weather turns warm enough to paint outdoors, comfortably, I’ll also be working on more plein air studies.  (That is, art created in the open air, under natural light.)

Frankly, if I’m not online, I may be on the road, driving to the seacoast or the White Mountains, to capture the sunrise colors there.

I’m excited about the warmer weather.  I’m relieved to be painting daily, again.  And, I’m looking forward to how these smaller sketches inspire larger works that help me appreciate the colors of Nature even more.

Update: In January 2011, I revisited this color study and turned it into a small gem of an oil landscape.  To view the results, see Spring 2010 – Revisited.

It was a cloudless morning.   The colors were lovely, but I’m most inspired by the startling colors that flash across the clouds when the sun is coming up.

So, I decided to try a color study instead of anything as dramatic as my usual morning sketches.  It’s a smaller work — 8″ x 10″ — but I’m rather pleased with it anyway.

The bad news is: The sky (and local color) was so blue, this photo barely represents the work.  I’ve had that problem before, when I paint and then try to take photos as the sun is coming up.

However, we’ll be at the seacoast later today, so I won’t have a chance to take better/replacement photos.  Not today, and by tomorrow or Monday, I’ll have half-forgotten these photos and I’ll be posting new artwork.

The detail at left may give you a better idea of the range of colors in this morning’s work.  That where, in real life, this color study shines.

It was one of those mornings when the sun was a rich red-orange (“red in the morning..,” as the saying goes) and for just a couple of minutes, the colors of the landscape were intense… almost neon versions of what they looked like five minutes later.

And, by noon, this scene will look as gray as any other washed-out day in early March.

That, of course, is the point of getting up early to paint.  I want to see those fleeting colors.  They’re what I keep in my mind’s eye as I look at the landscape at noon, when the light is very white, the shadows almost vanish, and the colors are flat.

To fully grasp the beauty of Nature, I think it’s vital to see it at its best.

(It’s sort of like seeing a photo of your aged grandmother from when she was dating.  After the initial “Wow!” moment, you can see how gorgeous Granny was — and still is — now that you know what to look for.  And, you probably see some of that beauty in yourself, when you look in the mirror.)

For me, Nature is at its best when the lighting is most interesting: Sunrise, sunset, immediately before a dramatic storm, during an eerie fog, and at night.

At sunrise today, I had about two or three minutes of vivid, hyper-saturated color in the landscape.  That’s what’s in this color study.

Since I didn’t paint at all yesterday — and really missed it — I was hoping that today’s skies would be more inspiring.  (Yesterday was one of those flat, gray-looking days.)

At sunrise this morning (6:15 a.m.), the sky was not inspiring.  However, I sat by my window and kept watching.  This process can be really tedious, because I cannot look away, even for a few seconds; I might miss an important flash of color that’d inspire a painting.

For about 20 minutes, the sky was gray and the snow looked brownish, as it does in late winter when it’s melting and the surface is dirty.

(Note:  When I like the color grey, I spell it grey. When I don’t, I choose the preferred American spelling, gray.)

Anyway, for just a few minutes — maybe 1 1/2 minutes, total — the sky had some color.  The clouds were blue and white and lavender , with touches of pink and peach.  The snow changed from a brownish tint to something more peachy.  And, the hills in the background seemed to flash a wide range of colors, including blue, green and orange.

So, I grabbed my palette and brushes, and the resulting sketch is above.  It’s a 9″ x 12″ canvas, wrapped so the colors extend around the sides and the painting doesn’t have to be framed.  (But, I probably will frame all of these, later.)

This is one of those sketches that went just a little too far, and I had to backtrack quickly to recapture the original energy.  Luckily, I was successful.  (More often, it’s better to wipe the paint off the canvas — or at least the area that I’d spoiled — and try again.)

For me, it’s always a tricky balance between “just right” and tweaking something so it’s technically more precise… but the initial energy is gone.

I’m getting better at making that decision, but I’m not 100% accurate with it, yet.

At left, you can see the some details from the middle of the canvas.  The pinkish colors are where the cadmium red (underpainting) shows through.

In general, I look at this canvas, and the mood and blending remind me of William Blake.  I’m okay with that, although — as a child — I grew up looking at my mother’s books of William Blake’s work, and they seemed really dark and creepy to me.

So anyway… for the past couple of days, I’ve left cadmium orange off my palette.  I don’t miss it.  I’m not sure that I’ll continue with this limited palette, but I ‘ll see how well this works in future paintings.

The colors I used were (from left to right on my palette): French ultramarine blue, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, lemon yellow, and pthalo blue.  I also use titanium white, which looks like a long squeeze of toothpaste across the bottom of my palette.  (Alizarin was on my palette, but I didn’t need it for this painting.)

I used five brushes, and most of them were filberts (rounded tips). All were boar bristle.  (One might have been synthetic boar bristle… but the idea is the same: It’s a stiff bristle that holds a lot of paint.)

For me, the brush strokes can be an important part of the work.  That’s where I vary from many Tonalists, who often prefer a completely smooth, almost glassy-surfaced painting.

It’s also a little frustrating when I post my artwork online:  If I sharpen the image so the brush strokes are clear, the impression of the colors seems askew.  So, the online images aren’t quite what the paintings look like… but they’re close enough.

Each day, I find myself mixing more colors on the canvas.  In fact, except for mixing the grey (French ultramarine blue + cad yellow) on the palette, almost all of the colors were pure pigment on my brush, and mixed as the brush dragged across the canvas.

I feel as if I’m recovering my artistic style.  As I look back over the past year and what I was working on, I realize how much my inner artistic voice was suppressed by my efforts to please the client I was working for.

Note to aspiring art collectors: It’s as counter-productive to nag an artist as it is to nag a woman in labor.  The creative process is best when it’s internally-driven.  If you can’t not nag, buy your art at a gallery, not directly from the artist.

Oh, I’m always flattered when people ask if they can buy my paintings.  That’s not what I’m talking about.

I mean clients who think frequent nagging encourages the artist to work faster.  (It does, but the results probably won’t be inspired work.)

That said, at least 80% of my clients are wonderful to work with.  They get what’s involved in the creative process, and they understand how to encourage it.  The result is collaborative delight.

In the future, I’ll probably follow Monet’s example:  I’ll accept subscriptions at a flat, predetermined rate. Then, the clients can visit my studio on a certain day, when I’ll have more than enough paintings for each to take one painting home.  In the order that they subscribed, they’ll be able to select one painting — from my latest works — to take home.

I like that idea.  I retain my autonomy as an artist, and the clients receive work that they’ve selected.

But, for now, I’m simply painting. I’m getting back in practice, and recovering my authentic voice as a painter.  I also want to build a large enough body of work that my kids (and their children, and so on) will have an artistic legacy that represents me as an artist and as an individual.

Once I feel confident in that, I’ll think about gallery work again.