Archive for September, 2011
Discussing Plein Air Painting
Tomorrow I have been asked to speak with art students at a local high school about my adventures and experiences doing plein air painting. The classes are Art I and II and a crafts class.
I will have to confess that I’m an experienced math teacher and came by art on a second chance to get it right! Fortunately, the regular teacher has additional plans for each class because my talk will take only a few minutes of each class. I will also bring some paintings to show. This will be both a fun experience and a challenge, but I look forward to it.
Fluidity in Landscape Painting
Robert Genn, Canadian landscape painter, wrote a newsletter recently about fluidity in painting. Fluidity is the presence of long, languorous strokes, elegance, panache, dash and curves. Like a long fluid line in a symphony, they give a feeling of completeness, mastery and intrigue.
He then gave some suggestions for achieving this: 1) The stiffness of oil paint can be extended by adding more medium – stand oil, walnut oil or other dedicated extenders. Products are widely available often based on Alkyd resins. Highly recommended is the range of Gamblin media that feature various types under the name of Galkyd. Online you might find them at the Gamblin Interactive Painting Mediums Guide. 2) A confident arm’s length stroke will produce more fluidity than a tightened-up finger and wrist action. The combination of a fully loaded brush, full body action and the brush held well above the ferrule does the trick.
For practice, frequent drawing goes a long way to extending your painterly stroke. The “stroke length” of dry media such as pencils, chalks and pastels is much longer than the typical brush. Dry work promotes fluid habits.
Movement and Rhythm in a Plein Air Painting
Among the most important considerations in a plein air painting are movement and rhythm – the journey of the eye as it makes connections among the elements of a composition. These connections, or eye paths, are sometimes obvious, as along a telephone pole or across the top of a mountain. At other times, the eye paths are more subtle as the mind and eye try to connect things along a common path, such as the implied diagonal along the tops of the tallest trees.
A fundamental rule of compositions is that every painting should have a focal point – one spot that is the center of attention. However, all areas of a painting should be interesting. It is much more important to keep the eye moving, never stopping or resting on one spot for too long. Rather than think in terms of a single focal point, think about areas of primary and secondary emphasis in the painting.
Divisions of a Landscape Painting
Some landscape painters compose their paintings with a grid. They divide the canvas into thirds both vertically and horizontally. Where the lines intersect are places the eye likes to rest. By placing elements along the grid lines or at the intersection of those lines, the grid serves as a kind of compositional template and helps the painter place elements in an orderly and balanced way. The focal point would be well placed if it were near or at one of the intersections.
Another way a landscape painter might divide the canvas is by deciding whether the emphasis of the painting should be the sky or the land (or neither). The location of the horizon has an effect on how depth is perceived in the composition. When the horizon is high, the composition is dominated by a large foreground which can carry the viewer deeply into the space. When the horizon is low, the sky dominates, and gives the impression that the horizon is very far away.
Variation John
When I first came to Salisbury, MD, I went to the local gallery to take lessons. The teacher was John Losonczy, a Hungarian pharmacist who studied art when he came to America some 30+ years ago. His students all loved him, but nicknamed him “Variation John” because he always taught us to create variation within a landscape painting.
Variation is one of the most essential considerations, because it is the differences within a composition – of size, value, color, shape and angles – that keep the eye moving through the painting and maintain visual interest. A composition may be full of movement or static. Variation regulates these energies.
For example, when painting a row of trees, rather than having the trees all the same diameter, equally spaced across the page, create trees of unequal diameters, some growing a little to the left or right, some with “V” shaped trunks, Then place them so some are forward of others and with unequal spacing between them.
Children and the Arts
In addition to the five blog spots per week I write about plein air painting for this blog, I also write two more for an online mall with which I am associated called Easy Place to Shop (http://www.easyplacetoshop.com). One blog spot is about children and the arts, the other is about home décor.
It is so important for children to become involved in the arts – whether music, drama, or painting. In school, children give memorized answers or answers arrived through calculation. In the arts, they learn about feelings, that problems can have more than one solution, that there are many ways to see the world, that small differences can have large effects, that neither words nor numbers define the limits of our understanding, that the arts enable us to have experiences we can have from no other source and through these experiences, we can discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling. In short, the arts enrich our lives.
Blind Spots in Plein Air Painting
Landscape painter Robert Genn in his weekly newsletter recently wrote about blind spots. He had successfully avoided someone whom he didn’t like at a party by avoiding eye contact with him. In like manner, a few days later he realized he was doing the same thing with his painting. He disliked some areas, so he avoided them. Other areas held his attention and kept him busy.
Upon checking with his fellow painters, he found that some had the same problem with blind spots. For some, the background held their attention while they ignored the difficult foreground. For others, certain small areas became lost in the shuffle.
How do you defeat the blind spot syndrome? First, accept that you will naturally favor some areas more than others. While your work is in progress you need to move between confident brushwork and rational strategy. It takes both sides of your brain to find the blind spots. Then let a few days pass before final decisions. Cruise objectively as through the eyes of another artist. The fixable blind spots will appear.
Site Selection for the Plein Air Painter – Part 2
Proceeding from yesterday, Michael Albala continues his list of questions to ask oneself. 5) What time of day are you painting? Morning and late afternoon offer the best opportunities for clear patterns of light and shadow. Remember that the sun seems to move the fastest at those times also, so two hours or so will be the maximum time you will be able to paint before the light changes.
6) In what direction is the sun moving? Will it come up over the trees shortly and change the light structure of the entire scene? Will it drop down behind the house soon? 7) Is there a way to introduce linear perspective? If there is not a naturally occurring diagonal, such as a road, fence or street, is there anything that could be exaggerated or invented?
I hope these questions will be helpful in locating the site for your next plein air painting event.
Site Selection for the Plein Air Painter
There are a variety of landscape subjects that are difficult to paint on a canvas. They may have wonderful color or possess great depth, but lack the spatial cues needed to suggest space in a two-dimensional painting.
Michael Albala in his book Landscape Painting lists some questions that plein air painters should ask themselves: 1) Are the various parts of the scene adequately differentiated? Do the values, colors and shapes distinguish themselves or do they blend together? 2) Is there a cross light that produces a light side and a shadow side to reveal the volume of the forms? Would a different vantage point reveal more cross light? 3) If the scene does not have enough cross light (as in sunrises, sunsets and overcast days), can the flat shapes be organized in a way that moves the eye through the landscape. Are there enough overlaps, scale differences and distinct value zones? 4) Have you included overlapping elements and elements that vary in scale to help indicate a layered space? (to be continued)
Cape Charles Plein Air Event
Cape Charles, VA, is a small town on the southern end of the Eastern Shore of MD and VA. It is only about 5 miles from the tunnel-bridge that crosses the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and connects the Eastern Shore with Newport News, Virginia Beach and Norfolk.
This past weekend Cape Charles had its annual plein air paint out. Probably a dozen artists painted on Saturday during a rain that poured 2 ¼” of water on the town. Fortunately, Sunday was at least dry, although cloudy. There was a reception Sunday from 5-7 PM and many locals and visitors came. In spite of the rain, I enjoyed the time I spent in Cape Charles and met many new artists and visitors.