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 - 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.