Color Considerations, Beach Walkers, Studio painting by Everglades artist Jo-Ann Sanborn

Beach Walkers

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It's been a really busy time for me, and will continue to be throughout the month, but by May I'll be back on schedule and beginning my summer body of work. It's something I look forward to every year, the end of the busy, selling season, and down to some serious work! I have a couple of commissions to finish up, but then should have some time if you're needing a special painting. Just give me a call or email me and we'll talk about your needs.

I've been teaching recently, and talking about color always gets me excited! Color is everywhere today, more color than at any time in the past. Everyone enjoys color in their home, clothes, and in the objects they use every day. We relate colors to psychology, and most colors have both a negative and positive connotation. The way you use color in your painting can set the tone or mood, and provide harmony.

When you’re considering what colors to use, you may choose a traditional color harmony, such as compliments, triad, or analogous colors, or you may look outside the traditional harmonies as you look for ways to establish a relationship between the objects in your painting. Here are some considerations:

Color can lead you on a visual path
Repeated colors can provide a rhythm in the painting
Colors reflect on and off the objects around them
Either warm or cool colors should be dominant in the painting
Colors must support each other rather than clash
Look for a dominant, a secondary, and an accent in both color and value.

Happy Painting!

Plein Air Painting, Enjoying the Sun studio painting by Everglades artist JoAnn Sanborn

Enjoying the Sun

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Enjoying the Sun is another in the elongated palm series I've been working on. I'm drawn to the way the palms inhabit there space. The intervals of space between them and the distance behind them continues to fascinate me. I'm sure that someday I'll wake up and not want to ever paint another palm but until them I'm excited every time I see a new arrangement!

It's Spring on Marco Island, and soon to follow in the rest of the country. I'm getting ready for a workshop at the Marco Island Center for the Arts the end of March. In preparation, I've been working on handouts, going over and revising some, and making some new ones.

Here are some highlights of my new Plein Air Handout.

Equipment
Paints – ideally a limited palette
Easily portable, sturdy easel
Canvas or other support
Something to sit on if you need it
Hat, sunscreen, bug stuff
Water, to drink & clean brushes
Paper towels or rags
Trash bag - please take everything you bring with you when you leave

Painting Process
Don’t try to put it all in
Determine your focus
Do composition thumbnails to save painting time.
Decide horizon line – landscape or skyscape?
Decide canvas orientation - active (vertical) or passive (horizontal)

It’s a given that the light will change while you’re out there. Live with it!
Block in the main values simply and quickly.
Work all over canvas to ensure desired placement
Squint to establish your values – again and again!
Color basics in broad value swatches
Don't get tangled up in details too early.

Remember atmospheric progression
Grayer and cooler in distance!
Compare values and colors constantly.
Use strongest value changes and sharpest edges in center of interest.

Step away from the canvas frequently
To renew your acquaintance with the landscape
To refresh your eye
Looking back, you'll see areas that need attention

Once direction of light is set, don’t chase shadows!

Keep a sense of Place, but don’t hesitate to move landscape elements to improve composition.

Have fun, stay loose, and enjoy the view.

Acrylic mediums, Morning Promise Studio painting by Everglades artist JoAnn Sanborn

Morning Promise, finished

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Sold

I've just shipped this new studio painting to a collector in Ohio who commissioned it for above her fireplace. Her room and walls were quite dark, so she wanted the piece to be fairly light in feel and in color. She's delighted, and says that her room is transformed with the presence of the painting. Just what I would hope one of my paintings would do for a room! I used a bit of glazing on the piece and wanted to write about acrylic mediums.

Acrylic mediums have many uses in painting with acrylic. , and I'm going to talk about a few of them. Just as with oil paint, acrylic artists often use mediums to help the paint flow, to add adhesion, and to extend the paint, or color, when necessary. Acrylic mediums act like a colorless paint. If you mix up a color and need just a bit more to finish up a section, you can add a little medium to extend. You can also economically extend the paint this way, but your paints will become more transparent as you add medium, so be sure to plan for that to happen.

Using too much water with acrylics can affect the adhesion qualities, to so ensure that your paint will remain attached to the support, add some acrylic medium as a binder whenever you get above 25-50% water. Acrylic medium is such a strong binder that it will act as a glue. Sometimes the medium will look opaque, particularly if you brush a lot, but it will eventually dry clear.

Another use of acrylic medium is as a glazing medium. It's perfect for washing a little color over the top of another, adding both depth and dimension. The blues will move parts of the landscape or skies back in space. and a glaze of yellow azo will bring alive a green foreground. You can also glaze an entire piece or part of one to bring discordant colors together.

Acrylic mediums come in a choice of matte, or gloss if you like a little shine. You can mix them if you’d like a little of each property.

Don't confuse mediums with additives, like texture. Mediums have binding and adhesive qualities that additives don't have!

Painting Morning Light, By Still Waters, studio painting by Everglades artist JoAnn Sanborn

By Still Waters

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Here's my new studio painting, By Still Waters. It's the first large painting I've done in a few weeks that isn't a commission, and I'll leave it for a day or two before doing a final check. The composition is a bit unusual, maybe too direct, and I may want to further define some directions for the eye. On the other hand, I like how it carries the eye up and around, so we'll see on a fresh look.

Different times of day require different lighting and color considerations. Here are some ideas for a painting you want to portray morning light. The colors are softer and more pastel, as the cooler purples and blues of the night sky still have an effect in shadow as the light comes up and brightens at the horizon. The morning sun is warm, so add a touch of yellow to the greens in light. Shadows can be laced with blue-greens to help portray the remaining coolness. Yellow Azo, or Lemon yellow are good yellows for morning, and can be toned down if too intense. Use a cooler yellow, like ochre or Naples in the distance and added to your greens as the foliage recedes.

The value of the shadows won’t be as dark as some other times of the day, so leave off some of the darkest darks. Remember that shadows are darkest near their source and lighten as they move away and are influenced by reflected light. Here the foliage is still in deep shadow. The tones will lighten as the sun climes higher in the sky.

Some mornings have a pinkish aspect. Portray it with a warm red with a touch of yellow, giving it a salmon glow. Near the distant horizon there may be both warm and cool tones in the sky. When the light is pink, the shadows will be warmed with reflected light taking on browner tones.

White Christmas on Marco Island!

White Christmas on Marco Island!

So what if its a white sand beach instead of the cold blowing icy snow? This darling snowman was demanding to be painted, but after struggling with time constraints I decided to make gingersnaps instead. You can have a few if you stop by! Thanks, Vickie, for sharing the photo!

The next few days will be devoted to enjoying the holiday, family and friends. Hope your Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or whatever you celebrate this time of year will bring you much pleasure and good memories. I'll look forward to posting and painting again in the New Year.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

On the Trail, Everglades Painting by JoAnn Sanborn

On the Trail

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Sold

In the studio I've been working on a commissioned piece. On the Trail, today's painting, refers to the Tamiami Trail, a road that goes from Miami to Tampa. Once you get outside the population centers of Fort Meyers and Naples going south the road travels through the Everglades into fairly remote and protected areas. It's not uncommon to see alligators in the canal along the roadside. The road travels through the lush green of the Fakahatchee to the more open prairies of the Big Cypress and Everglades National Park. This scene is in the Fakahatchee, not far from Marco Island. I've painted in this area before, and did a small painting that can be seen on my blog in preparation for this larger commissioned painting.

Florida Everglades Painting set aside

Today I cut the sky into the trees and defined the forms more fully. I'll most likely do this at least one more time before the finish. The main palm is beginning to show some character. The two almost equal grass forms where the water goes left need to be softened and maybe joined, and the light can be strengthened. After these changes I'll put the painting up on my studio wall for a few days to see if it needs a final pass. During this "waiting time" I really get to know a painting and gradually see issues that need to be resolved to finish it or come to hate it and will almost start over when working on it again. It's a big difference from my daily paintings, seen here, which are done in one day.

Florida Everglades Painting, Finishing a Painting

I’m still working on the color strategy and building the forms and will do this until they come into balance and make sense on the canvas. I won’t worry about getting an exact representation of the scene any more because I have a sense of the place. I'm not doing a portrait but will want you to know the character of the main palm before I'm through. As I work I identify with the subject(s) more and more closely, and by the time I’m done most of the forms will be as familiar to me as my family. At his point I have added lights and darks three times and there's beginning to be a sense of volume to the forms, and of light coming in. I've also added some clouds and color to the sky. I still have a way to go before I'm satisfied.

Knowing when a painting is finished is the most difficult part of the process. It's only finished when the creating artist decides it's finished! Some artists will consider a painting finished when there is still some of the canvas showing—leaving bits of white or undercoat to contribute to the whole. Some artists start in one corner and work directionally and will never again touch the laid-down bits. When the canvas is covered, they’re done. Some artists work over the canvas surface again and again struggling to bring their artistic vision into form until the canvas contains even a piece of the artist’s heart. But in the end each artist must find a combination of methods and visions that work for them, laying down the brush only when confronted with a satisfying whole.