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.

Process - Building Form

Today I’m starting to refine and redefine the value shapes. At the moment there are three values—the dark upright trees, the light sky, and the flat land. These will develop into many values as each form is built but will retain their original character. Now the ground is lighter and flattening out because it receives the most light. The uprights will always be the darkest value because they receive the least light, as does the bottom of the grasses. I want to remember to retain the water that can be seen in the foreground of the working photo, so I’ve put it in—it’s another “flat,” so it will receive more skylight and be lighter than the upright grasses around it.

At this point in the painting the main forms are also being built, with special attention to the negative shapes created. It’s a push-pull process. I’ve cut in around the main palm, reshaped it, and cut in again. The pines have been shaped and reshaped. For me this part is a building process –build up, reassess, tear down, build up again. I’m also very much aware of the edges of the canvas and how each of them contributes to pushing the painting into shape. And as the sky becomes yellower, the painting starts to lean in the direction of the original color stratagy.

Process - Color Strategy, Responsibility of the Artist

From this point on in the painting process, the responsibility of the artist is to the CANVAS, and will, hopefully, transcend the photograph. The photo has done its part by reminding us of the original idea for the painting and by providing the details of the scene that caught our attention. What develops on the canvas must go beyond the photo, bringing the spirit of both the place and the artist into the work. It may be referred to again for additional informational details, but should not be relied upon for interpretation.

I’ll now begin to develop a color strategy for the painting. My color strategy is intuitive rather than from formulas, but comes from a great deal of background study and interest in color. For this painting I know I’d like to push the pines into the background with with soft blue greens and work the whole painting into a more neutral vein. Working neutral is a struggle, but I love the results. So I’ve worked up a “color sheet” to keep me on track and will keep that paper at the easel to help me. Still, I will often throw my original plans to the wind when work on the canvas takes me in a different direction.

A small Masterson’s palette holds my color supply, and aluminum pie places will be used for mixing. This way the mix can be held right up to the canvas to check how the color will work with the whole. I never mix up too much of one color, and almost no paint goes on without being mixed up a little.

For this painting my palette will consist of the following colors: Liquitex’s Quinacridone crimson, Yellow Azo, Naples Yellow, Pyrrole Orange (a new favorite, it’s to soft) Aqua, Cerulean Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Green Gold, Light Portrait Pink, Burnt Umber and Golden’s Quinacridone gold, titanium white and parchment.

Process -Reviewing the compositon, building forms

You can see that the light sky is beginning to take shape, and the ground is flattening out. Because my process is a building one, the forms will be painted over and over pushing them into each other and around each other. By painting the sky, the edges of the trees are obliterated, and by repainting the trees the sky and trees will be woven together back and forth until each finds it place on the canvas. The same will happen with the undergrowth and grasses, yet unseen. Fortunately in acrylics this is easy to do, where in oils you'd be making mud.

Here composition is still being defined and strengthened and a dark barely seen in the photograph will help to carry your eye from the foreground into the painting. At this stage I work with a dirty brush, almost dry brush and haven't yet begun to form a color strategy for this painting.

Process - Painting from Photographs

Whether still life, portraiture or landscape, an artist needs to view a live version their subject in order to know it fully. A landscape painter must spent time outside to have the secrets of the land revealed. The landscape has many personalities, changes very quickly and reveals its secrets slowly. It takes patience and perception to see what she has to offer.

In the past I've spent many hours in the Everglades and in areas around Marco Island painting. I like responding directly to the landscape. My usually practice is to "block out" the painting outside, but take it back to the studio for further interpretation. Sometimes, however, it's necessary to work from photographs. This is fine as long as you took the photograph yourself and understand a photographs limitations. It's not a good idea to use someone else's photograph for many reasons, but that's a subject for another day! Photographs flatten the scene, and reduce the value range, so you'll have to make up for this in the painting.

I'm going to use the above photograph to start a new studio painting. I want the painting to be about the palm tree, so I'm going to shorten and push back the surrounding pines. There's a nice dark in the front that I'll carry through to the back, and some palmetto bushes to set off the palm. The light sky makes a nice negative coming into the foliage. Let's get started!

First mix up a nice dark use it to block out everything but the lightest portions of the composition. I use a mix of the warm red and blue on my palette, like quinacridone crimson and ultramarine blue. If it's too purple I'll mix in a little brown or green to keep it neutral. Using a fairly dry brush I scrub the shape of the dark trees and bushes into the dark canvas. You can barely see the forms, but that's OK. After I'm satisfied with the dark pattern, I very roughly block out the light sky. This is only the first stage, and the painting will be completed by many layers of paint as the forms are built.

Now it's time for a value check. This painting will be mostly darkish midtones, with a smaller portion being light sky and the smallest portion being the darkest darks. I'll take a break if it's going well at this point.