Posts Tagged ‘landscape oil paintings’
Why I Love Painting with Oils
I like painting with oils for several reasons. First, the paints are easy to use. Oil paint is composed of two parts, the pigment and a binder. The binder most often is linseed oil, so thinning the paint is as easy as adding oil to it. In addition to linseed oil, artists also may use walnut, poppy seed, or safflower or other oils to shorten or lengthen the drying time. When an artist begins painting, the dark areas are usually painted first in a thin wash. Later, the painter goes over that first wash with another coat, being careful not to mix the two.
Secondly, oil paints are slow drying, so I can continue working on my painting the next day. Corrections are easy to make either while the painting is wet or when it is dry. The final result is a painting which has beautifully blended colors which create a soft and lovely look, and the colors of oil paintings stay rich and vibrant for a very long time.
Easels
For the indoor studio, many types of easels are available from small table easels to large multi-featured deluxe models. If one is concerned about space and cost, the Stanrite 500 is a light weight, sturdy aluminum easel that can handle all but the very largest paintings. When not in use, it can be collapsed and stored against the wall or behind the door.
For the artist who does landscape paintings the compact Pochade box is available, such as those sold by Open Box M and Artwork Essentials, for those who do small paintings. Also, French easels in both half- and full-size styles are available. If you choose the half-size, it is about 25% lighter than the full size and holds all the necessary brushes and paints. The most recommended names are Mabef and Julian. They both could double as a studio easel if space at home is limited and both accommodate much larger canvases.
Brushes
The artist who does landscape paintings needs a variety of brushes and hog bristle is most suitable for oils. For the initial stages of a painting, a large brush is essential for toning the surface and blocking in large shapes. A size 14 or 16 bright or short filbert is suggested. For the next stage, creating the painting, size 4, 6, or 8 filberts are suggested because they are the most versatile and can be used for rounded strokes as well as thin strokes. Because they have longer bristles, they hold more paint than brights. Flats also have longer bristles and are similar to filberts but have a square tip.
Shorter-bristled brights are less flexible and hold less paint. Rounds are shaped to make round strokes and are well suited for impressionist paintings. A synthetic #2 filbert or round is good for detail. If these brushes are too soft and flexible they will not be able to manipulate the paint.
Painting Surfaces – Boards & Panels
Canvas boards for oil painting or acrylics are available from many companies and in many types. Some of the very inexpensive ones may not hold up well, so it would be wise to try a variety to see which one you like.
Panels can be obtained from the lumber company. Ask for a Masonite panel which will probably be 4’ x 8’ and the clerk will even cut it to your specification. These are less expensive than the canvas boards, but more labor intensive as you must gesso them yourself. If you choose this path, avoid overly thick and streaky strokes that leave visible tracks. A good choice is to use a small sponge roller which will create a soft, pebbled surface that is a good painting texture.
Plein Air Workshop at McCann – Part 2
On Thursday afternoon we went out doors to paint. I found a grove of 6 or 8 hemlock trees to paint. Hemlocks are a kind of evergreen tree: the upper branches have needles, but all the in-between and lower branches are small, barren and grow horizontally, bending downward at the ends. I painted on my square canvas and almost finished the painting.
On Friday, Joanna and I were the only students and we are both oil painters. We went to a creek area with large hemlocks on each side. It took me most of the day to finish my painting, but it is attached.
The under painting shows through somewhat in the brown area at the bottom of the painting, but I’m not sure about the iridescent copper in the under painting. Perhaps I painted over it too thickly. It’s purpose was to make the painting glow.
Simplification
When I decide to do a landscape painting, after I have selected the general scene and cropped it to fit my purpose, my next challenge is to find a way to translate the vast amount of detail in that scene into a coherent statement that makes sense not only to me, but also to a viewer. Copying nature is not possible. The challenge is finding the most essential elements of the landscape and organizing them into a coherent whole.
A landscape painter must find a way to translate a living and complex scene into a set of simpler shapes and patterns that stand for the original scene. The strokes the painter chooses can communicate the same emotion as the actual landscape and serve as an analogy. Simplification is a way of seeing the world at every stage of the painting, not just the beginning stage.
Learning to simplify is not easy. It is a process that evolves through conscious observation and practice. If we follow our essential maxim that “Less is more” then we must learn to see the world in a new way – in its most basic, essential forms.
Selection and Composition
When I decide to do a landscape painting, one of my first challenges is to decide what I want to paint. Selecting the scene and composing the painting present real challenges. The landscape painter has no control over the lighting or the arrangement of the scene. The color of the light and density of the atmosphere change from minute to minute. Shadows are never fixed.
To create an illusion of depth on a two dimensional surface, artists work with certain visual cues: light and shadow, volume, scale, overlap and perspective. These are not always easy to find in the out of doors. Therefore, one of the essential skills of a landscape painter is selection – the ability to evaluate a scene beforehand and decide if it contains the visual cues which can be translated into an effective painting.
Selection and composition also are concerned with the amount of information in the landscape. In attempting to paint the landscape for the first time, the student is overwhelmed. The maxim “Less is more” comes to mind. We must narrow our field of vision and limit our focus.
The Relativity of Color
If you place two small squares of yellow color on a canvas a few inches apart and surround one with a square of red and the other with a square of green, the two yellows will appear to be different. The one within the red square will appear to be lighter and brighter than the one within the green square.
This illustrates a fundamental truth about color: Color is relative. A color choice can never be evaluated in isolation, but only in the context of the surrounding colors. Each color affects the adjacent color as well as the painting as a whole. In a landscape painting myriad colors can be assigned to the trees and fields, but it is a consistent color strategy that binds them all together.
The Limitations of Paint
Because we are so accustomed to seeing sunshine on the landscape, we never fail to sense that it is real. A landscape painting, however, is different. Artists cannot exactly match the colors in nature. This is because natural light and painters’ pigments are not the same thing. At sunset, the sky glows. The canvas only reflects light; it cannot actually glow. The brilliance of a sunset or the radiance of sun dancing on water are just not possible with paint.
Artists borrow from nature and use those colors as a starting point, but getting the “right” color is never about copying nature or matching nature hue for hue, value for value. It is about finding a parallel relationship – a color metaphor – that substitutes for the real thing. Painters try very hard to see the world as it is and to record the colors as they see them. But the limitations of canvas and paint force the artist to change what they see in order to create a convincing illusion – to create a “lie that tells the truth.”
The Torpedo Factory Art Center
On Sunday, I made a trip to Alexandria, VA, to visit the Torpedo Factory Art Center. The U.S. Navy began construction on the building in 1918 as a factory to manufacture torpedoes for use after World War I and throughout World War II. It was used for storage for many years, but the City of Alexandria bought it in 1969 and in 1974 it was opened to the public and had been turned into studios which artists could rent and have space to create their oil paintings, works in acrylic, ceramics, collage/mixed media, fibers, jewelry, photography, printmaking, or sculpture.
Today the Torpedo Factory is home to over 165 artists working in 82 studios which are open to the public. A Torpedo Factory studio is truly unique. In one space, an artist creates, displays, discusses, and sells his or her artwork. Not only can you shop for original artwork in the studios, you can also get a first hand look at the artistic process. In addition to the 82 artists’ studios, the Torpedo Factory is also home to six galleries, the Alexandria Archaeology Museum, and the Art League School.
The building is about a block long, three stories high and has two torpedoes on display with information about the building. It is at the edge of Alexandria’s charming Olde Towne district with its many restaurants. Today, the Torpedo Factory is a thriving example of how the arts can revitalize a community and serves as a prototype for communities throughout the world who wish to establish their own visual arts facility.