What I am learning

As I am picking back up plein air painting in oil, I am looking at paintings I admire and watch how the artists paint them.
In particular Marc Dalessio's work speak the most to me. He paints many ordinary scenes, but turn them into little jewels. In his paintings I can see the strong sense of design, great drawing skills, great control of the brushes, and most importantly a passion for capturing the scenes. His work ethic is also an inspiration to me.
To me it's very important to study paintings that inspire me. There's no point to look at paintings that I do not enjoy, because I don't feel the drive to dissect and learn from them. In Marc's paintings, I can look at how he simplifies shapes almost to the extreme, breaking complex foliage into flat shapes based on values. As long as the composition is sound, and the values are precise, they look spectacular.
When I go out to paint, I like to think about what I have learned, and try to apply them. Sometimes it just doesn't work, either it's because I don't really understand the method, or it's because it just doesn't work with how I work.  But when it works, it's so rewarding.

Some things I have learned recently that I find absolutely works with me:

1) Sight sizing:
I have never been taught this before. Marc's youtube tutorial on that is great. whenever I painted before, I always found it a chore to bring out my viewfinder, tighten it to the view I want to frame, and hold it there as I marked down the boundaries to the painting surface. Once I have the boundaries landmarks I could work my way in to fill out the rest of the drawing. With sight-sizing, it's much easier. I set up my pochade box so it's the height of the subject (so far it's always slightly higher than my eye level), and just dart my eyes left and right to practically duplicate what I see onto the canvas. Of course I still have to mark down some lines to secure the compostion, but it helps so much. It also helps getting colours and values right easier, because darting my eyes left and right I can compare 2 images (the view and the canvas) more easily.
I find though, painting when the painting support is higher than eye level, my arm gets really sore lifting after a while, not sure how to fix that.


2) Work slow:
I always had the idea that to have an expressive painting one needs to painting expressively and fast. Over the years, I watched some good artists painting including recently Marc's demo in Switzerland. He works so slow and careful! He works over the surface gently and get the edges sharp meticulously and they still look expressive at the end. In my early painting years I thought my paintings looked alive and passionate, but honestly looking back, some were very sloppy and messy. I believe now to make a good painting one needs to think while he paints too, it's an intellectual process. Painting slowly, I can have time to make sure my colours/values are more correct; I can make sure I have covered all the thin transparent area because I start adding opaque colours on top; I give myself more time to revise my drawing and shapes as I go.


3) Steady hands:
This kind of goes hand in hand with point 2. I have never bothered with a Mahl stick, but now I would really like to have one. It doesn't mean that to work slow and steady you will end up with a stiff painting. To be steady you will get more precise lines work and more perfect small shapes. One thing about working en plein air on small scale is that, it's hard to make the painting look grande compared to a studio painting, because the lack of smaller finer details. So if you don't have small shapes to show scale in the plein air painting, it can look crude and amateurish.


4) Key the sky first:
Again, another one of Marc's approaches. I have been trying it out for the last 2 weeks and I want to keep doing it for now.


5) Use less paint:
This doesn't apply to everyone, but it works for me.
Thinning paint to me always meant adding turpentine, but now I have a new understanding.
Basically, you don't need a lot of paint to cover the surface, especially if it's not the top layers. If the paint is thick, where it touches the support is gripped/absorbed by it, and the excess at the top is loose. When you apply another layer of paint on it, the 2 layers of paint mix and you have smears. Even to thin with turps, you want to make sure your brush is not loaded with paint for the bottom layers.
For the top level, you apply the fat over lean rule. Fat doesn't necessarily mean more paint, it can be fattened with medium (linseed oil for example). For the bottom layers you either use little paint, or dilute with turpentine to thin it, or together.


6) Don't use largest brush possible:
This is what I heard before: "Use the largest brush possible." I find it doesn't work for me. I find to use a brushes a bit smaller than the shapes I want to make give me good results. If it's too big, it's harder to control and it can end up looking crude and boring. I like my paintings to look elegant and with variation in every area. With smaller brush I can achieve that.

The sun and the moon

Yesterday the sun was going in and out of the clouds and I wanted to have a back lighting (Contre-jour) painting. I drove for an hour and could not find a suitable view. I did find many views but they all had the sun behind me and I did not want to hold the umbrella for 3 hours.
Eventually I went to Iona Beach, which was quite a way from where I live. Even there I couldn't find a view with nice foreground, I ended up with this very minimalistic composition.

I had to wear the sunglasses the whole time until the sun dropped near the horizon and lost its intensity. I have painted with sunglasses on before and I don't find it too big a problem. Basically I mix paint as I see, so when I take the sunglasses off at the end it should be as though I painted without them. I did take them off intermittently to check the painting though. A side effect of staring into the sun was that when I looked at the painting I would see green dots all over almost the whole time. I didn't paint that effect into the painting, but Monet did (different effect).

I tried a few ways of painting the reflection on the water from the sun but couldn't get a good result. To flatten a such bright area into a narrow gamut of values from black to white was not trivial to me. When I went home I repainted the water based on how I remembered it and I am still not sure if it's the best solution.

February sun at 3:30pm - oil on panel - 8" x 12"

When I was done with it, the sun was near the horizon and the sunset colours were brilliant, but I didn't plan a sunset painting so I left the painting as it was. When I turned around to see how the landscape has changed over the hours, I couldn't believe my eyes: moon rise!  I had always wanted to paint a moon rise and I loved the colours. It was a fumble to set up the tripod because I knew it wouldn't last 5 minutes. I didn't even have time to find level ground, I was painting this with a half squat because my stool was about 45 degrees crooked.

Moon rise over Iona Beach - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

To paint quickly, I didn't have time to even key the sky first, I had to go straight to the clouds since they were changing the most, then the sky, then the moon, then the land. The order of process has its problem. Since the moon was the brightest thing there, it should be keyed first, since in painting I can only go as bright as white. The result was that the sky was in similar value as the moon. At home I took the sky down a shade so the moon would seem brighter. Also, below the horizon was too bright too. I blame it on not using the book light when painting. Look at the photos below, the lighting was pretty dimmed then. I painted under that condition, of course when viewed in bright day light the painting would seem too bright.

On going lessons:
-relative value, compare, compare, compare.
-use book light to paint if outdoor light gets dark.
-If there's no time to key the bright thing first, make sure the first thing I paint has proper value compared to that.

Wellingdon cloud formation

Yesterday the clouds were magnificent. Lots of voluminous and dark clouds. Depending on which direction you look you get different enjoyment.
I wanted a view that gave me the best cloud view, but in the city it wasn't easy to find. I drove a bit and quickly decided on this angle. The reason was that the clouds and lights were changing fast, if I wasn't decisive I would lose it all.
I will leave the majestic clouds and grand vista for next time.

Wellingdon cloud formation - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

Some work in pogress pictures.

Crows at then end of Penzance

Yesterday was supposed to rain but it didn't, that made painting a lot more relaxing.
Three trains went by, each time I had to wait about 5 minutes for the many cars to go by. The horizon line is a little crooked, I blamed it on one side of my camping stool sinking in the dirt.

Overall all I feel like this is one of my most "Canadian" painting so far.

Crows at then end of Penzance - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

reflections

Looking at all the landscape paintings I have ever done, I tend to be inspired by rugged, weathered and organic things, whether it be natural or man-made.

I am not much of a story teller. I do not set out to paint an image with a story in mind, or create one after the act. I paint because painting itself is the story. It's a process that transforms what the eyes see into an image composed of dots, lines and blobs of shapes.

The dots are the rocks in rapids, they come in all shapes and sizes, sharp or round, they create resistance and harmony. The lines are calligraphy, thick and thin, straight and curve, they are elegant and full of rigor. The shapes are like land masses on a globe, the continent and islands, big and small, flat and rugged, they are perfectly balanced. With all the element in unity, they reveal us a sophisticated painting.

Here is a quote from Isaac Levitan. I love to paint all places that stir the heart, but his words are beautiful.


"I chose to paint not exclusively beautiful places, but the most simple and ordinary.. revealing those intimate, deeply moving, often sad traits that are felt so strongly in our native landscape and that so irresistibly act upon the soul." 

- Isaac Levitan

Puddles on Skeena

It was down pouring when I left home. I searched for a motif (am I using the word correctly?) that took advantage of the rain. When I got to Aadnac and Skeena I saw this wet road lined with tall trees with character, I knew this was it.

Puddles on Skeena - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

I don't like setting up in the rain, because I have to be very careful not to let rain get on the paints and palette. As soon as the water hits the paint it beads up and will prevent paint from mixing well.

Painting a view like this well will take some practice on my part. I have to admit when I was done at the spot the trees looked a little folk-artsy. It required some careful elegant line work back at home to give the trees character and depth. The decision to allow some groups of branches to turn into a mass and depicting some with precise drawing is also very important.

Lastly, people really need to pick up after their dogs. The first spot had 2 piles of dog doodies emitting a very unpleasant odour, and I had to move.

Gloomy sunset and the Fraser river

You may find this painting familiar, and you'd be right. I painted over this painting. I was not satisfied with how the old painting looked, very plain and lacked form. I also did not like how it didn't show the banks of the river so there's no visual clues of where I was standing and how wide/narrow the river was.

After trying out painting-into-effect, I thought this would be a great candidate to do it again. There was a rain front coming in to the lower mainland from the south. From my living room looking north I could see the cloud front covering most of Vancouver and stopped just short of the mountains on the North Shore. I wanted to do a sunset of this painting, but I wanted a brilliant sunset with nice clouds and clearing with lots of colours.

Anyway, Heather came home and I heard her say that the south near the river is all clear, so we hopped in the car and started driving south to the river. The whole way I saw nothing but clouds and I asked her where's the clearing she was talking about. Apparently we had a miscommunication. Looking north from the rear view mirror I could see the sun hitting the top of the mountains with nice warm colours, but my heart was set on painting the river.

We got to the river, and it looked pretty lackluster, but I could see a sliver of orange through the gray sky. I wanted to wait a bit for the sky to get darker and colours more saturated. I was happy to see the tide had gone down and revealed the bank on the right side with snow on top, nice textures!

The colours never got saturated as I had hoped, but I am starting to feel that the joy of painting and the reward is not the view you are presented with but how it's transferred to the canvas.

Gloomy sunset and the Fraser river - oil on panel - 9" x 12"

Looking at some of the best landscape paintings in art history, I wonder if we were there in front of the view would we be inspired?

Here is a painting by Isaac Levitan, one of my all time favorite painters. When I was at school my animation short was inspired by his paintings. 

Vladimirka, 1892 (79 x 123 cm, Oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery) - Isaac Levitan