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Lately, I've been studying water. I think in doing waves and reflections an artist needs to understand how they work regardless of painting in a highly realistic or an impressionist manner.

An article in the last few years in a major art magazine was very helpful as a starting point for me. I don't remember the artist's name, who gave this advice, but thank you!

He said to think of waves as mirrors and glass. The slope of the wave facing you is like glass. You can see through this "glass" to bottom features like stones up close and farther out the general color of the water at depth. The surface of the waves facing away from you are the "mirrors". They reflect the sky or other reflections such as trees, a boat, buildings, etc.

This last month on the shore of Lake Superior, I spent time studying and photographing waves in different light and shade and at different time of the day.

Gurney's pages on painting water, in the book "Color and Light", are extremely helpful too! I encourage you to read them.

I've included the water study in two stages...

Here's to continued learning! Mark

This painting has bothered me for a long time. Over a year ago, the background was a muted blue-grey. The painting had an overall cool, pristine feel to it. But I've rarely sold paintings that feel "cold." About six months later, I re-painted the background with warmer tones, and adjusted some of the foreground cools accordingly. It has looked unfinished ever since, and it also seemed to lose it's vibrancy. 

Before:   

Now finally, I've added the green wooden bowl to bring back the visual play between warms and cools, and the rough wood adds textrual contrast as well. Finally it feels balanced and like a better, more finished painting. 

After:   

If you have any old paintings sitting around, I encourage you to get them out and problem solve. What have you got to lose? You might save a painting, but more importantly it will help you develop critical thinking skills and possibly add a few items to your "mental tool belt". 

Have fun! 

Hello to you painters and non-painters!

Here's a plein-air (done outdoors) painting from our trip last week to the North Shore of Lake Superior. This is a beautiful spot, where the Brule River joins the lake.

I was attracted to this scene for many reasons, but on this particular morning it was overcast and mist was rising off the river. I set up my easel and got to work. The mist became a drizzle, and then rain. I've never painted in the rain before. Water began beading up all over the oil painting and my palette, pooling in drawers and painting cups. The painting seemed very grey and dull when finished - well duh!

Later in my studio, I added a bit of color, but the obvious element to play up was the contrast. And of course, because I'm me, I couldn't help but add a bit of detail though I know for some artists and buyers this "ruins" the pristine effect of out-of-doors paintings. My work as an illustrator continues to haunt my painting methods... :-)

Warm Regards, ~ Mark

Hi folks!

This is a follow up to the previous blog/newsletter entitled "Steps in the Painting Process of 'Morning Bargain'". You may remember that I offered a description of the following steps... 

Well, things don’t always turn out the way we might wish.  After showing the painting to both friends and instructors (not mutually exclusive!), I was made aware of several errors.  It has taken a while to fix these mistakes, but of course it’s not the only thing on which I’ve been working. 

Here they are:

1.  Perspective issues with walls and arched doorway, somewhat hidden by foreground elements.  Making a small 3-D model of the walls and doorway, and holding it up to the sun in just the right way helped me see how to correct this. 

2. The foreground figures were too small given the perspective and their size relationships to the camel, and I also needed to simplify their light/shadow shapes.

3. Shadows beneath camel needed to be adjusted, and the edges and contrast on the guinea fowl had to be softened, as they were drawing the viewer’s eye too strongly away from the main focal point.

4. Finally, before the critique, I added the younger man on top of the load, to strengthen the weight of the composition.  There is now a rough, invisible circle connecting the heads of young man, main figures, and the corner of the white sign board.  It echoes the curves in the camel and the arched doorway.

Humbling yes, but still after all these years I find the critiques from other artist’s invaluable.  To those of you who are artist’s reading this, I realize it is not always terribly enjoyable.  But it’s a very good thing to get used to, and almost always results in better paintings.  And, you don’t always have to take every suggestion to heart.  It is okay to like something just the way you already have it. 

Thanks for reading!   ~ Mark

Overview:  This painting is a bit of an experiment for me, trying to bring together a number of photo references into a single painting, making the light, color tones, and perspective all blend into a single coherent narrative.  Some elements are from memory, like the arched doorway, and the overall feel of a North Indian morning at a certain time of year.  Also, I’ll be trying a bolder approach (for me) of impressionistic color use and paint application. 

A few reference materials and prep studies.  Main photo taken in Jaipur, India several years ago.

Step one.

I started with a reddish pink under-painting, a technique I use often in scenes where I want an overall warmer or cooler tone showing through succeeding layers of paint.  It helps to unify a painting, since oil paint is semi-translucent, and can be used to warm up a cool hued painting or vice versa.  I first learned this in an older book by landscape painter Peter Poskas.

Step two.

Ooops!  I got ahead of myself – finishing one of the figures out of a sense of panic, since figures have always been difficult for me, thinking that if the focal point in a figure painting doesn’t turn out it’s not worth the time and materials for the rest of the painting.  This is a no-no, given the way I’m currently being taught, where the emphasis is on painting “passages” all over the painting so that color, value and temperature relationships stay consistent throughout the painting process.  Still. You can see the first layer of paint application in much of the other parts of the painting.

Step three.

Here we can see the establishment of the rest of the light and shadow tones, and the beginning of color dashes in the shadows.  Cooler, duller intensity color dashes farther back, warmer ones toward the front.

Step four.

Here is most of it, but several hours away from finishing, perhaps a day.  In my original color study, I had tried a cutout piece of painted canvas in the lower right corner, one painted with greenery and the other with a small herd of swine.  But the greenery seemed unlikely there, and pigs too solid a mass.  I had photos of both. But then I remembered the Guinea fowl that are so popular in parts of Nepal and India.  There was a flock of them kept by a neighbor just up the lane from my apartment in Kathmandu.  I looked online for reference, and the flock in the painting is the result, a much more satisfying light and dark pattern, and psychologically “lighter”.  I also think I want to find a way to “soften” the color dashes, especially in the shadows, as they look rough and a little distracting.  There will also be telephone and power lines across the top, visually pushing the viewer down toward the foreground.

Hi Friends!

My hope is that this and any following blogs will help, inspire, and even comfort other artists, and perhaps be interesting to others as well.

I tend to make most of my mistakes when I’m impatient about getting started on a new painting, and skip preparatory steps like a value map, and notan check (interlocking forms), and occasionally a small color study.

In the painting of the black bear, my inspiration was the setting containing a log tangle my wife and I found on a hiking trip along a river in northern Minnesota.  The result in the first attempt looks heavy and dark, and lacks depth.  I kept adding cool notes in the background and several warm glazes to the foreground, then added the warm autumn leaves to try and bring it forward.  It wasn’t enough.  So it sat in storage with other frustrating paintings for nearly a year.  When I got it out again, it was easier to see that though there were strong elements, the overall design was weak.

As you can see in the image, I completely repainted the background using a cool grey for the sky and mixing that grey with every other color for harmony.  I added the large, warm, dark stump in the foreground, for several reasons: it anchors the entire composition, it gives me a warm solid mass that brings the foreground forward toward the viewer, it’s relative size gives the impression of perspective, and finally, it’s dark shape echoes the shape of the bear.  The background cool grey and the warm dark of the bear also provides riveting contrast for the focal point.  Finally, I used the brightest, most chromatic greens of the moss closer to the bear as focal point, and dulled them slightly as they gradated away from the bear.  As I’m sure most of you know, bright tones (chroma is about intensity) tend to jump forward, while dull tones recede into the distance.  There are a few tricks and exceptions to this rule, but basically, I find it’s a very useful rule to follow.

And by the way, though I have painted in watercolor and worked in colored pencil, being able to “save” a piece of artwork like this is one of the reasons I love working in oils, though probably one can do much the same with acrylics.

Any questions or comments (or disagreements!), let me know.  I look forward to sharing comments and perspectives with you!

Mark