Posts Tagged ‘landscape paintings’
Raining, Again
Yep, you guessed it! It’s raining again today! With a 90% chance of raining tomorrow, this is just not a good time to do plein air painting!
I always have paintings that need finishing however. Sometimes I have to adjust the colors a bit, and I like to paint around the edges which is always done in studio. So today is a good day to finish some of those landscape paintings that were mostly painted on site!
The Park on Coronado Parkway
A few days ago, my friend and I went to the city park on Coronado Parkway, Cape Coral, FL. to do some plein air painting. It is a fairly large park with a variety of trees.
Along the perimeters are “stubby” trees with short trunks and billowing tops. The interior of the park had larger, more elegant trees which gave lots of shade for the children’s playground and picnic shelters beneath them.
There were also some quite large shelters. I didn’t check them out, but I heard the clack of what might have been shuffleboard pucks attacking one another. Parks are great places to enjoy life.
The Bonsai Nursery
Today, my friend and I visited a Bonsai nursery in North Fort Myers in search of a choice tree for our landscape paintings. Bonsai trees are amazing to me - those little shrubs about 12″ - 36″ in height that normally would be much larger!
To create a Bonsai tree, one uses techniques like pruning, root reduction and grafting to produce small trees that mimic the shape and style of mature, full-sized trees. Frequently, the trunks of Bonsai trees are much larger in comparison to their height than normal tree trunks are to their height. Also, sometimes the limbs have been wired to grow in a particular shape to make an interesting display. To me, they are always charming.
Visiting the City Parks
A few days ago my friend and I took some time off and visited several parks in Cape Coral, FL, looking for a park that had interesting trees for our landscape paintings. Some areas that are listed as parks are more attuned to baseball games or other athletic venues, rather than family picnicing and interesting trees.
When we find a suitable park, it is pleasant to paint a picture or two, but then it is time to move on. It seems we are always on the hunt for new places to go, but it is such a joy to find a new, interesting place to paint.
Choosing a Scene for your Landscape Painting
We are all attracted to some scenes more than others. So the first task is to find a scene that speaks to you. As you think about the placement of that scene on your canvas, think of a Tic-Tac-Toe grid. Where the vertical lines cross the horizontal lines are the “sweet spots”. The focus of your landscape painting should be in one of those 4 areas.
Using a view finder or making a square or rectangle with your hands (depending on the shape of your canvas) will help in deciding just what to draw on your canvas. Making a few sketches in your sketch book will help you in deciding exactly how you want to place your landscape painting on the canvas, what to include and what to omit. These sketches also help you to remember just where you were when you painted that scene..
The Jaycee Park again
Today, my friend and I again went to the Jaycee Park in Cape Coral to do some plein air painting. The weather was warm, the sun was bright, and the wind a gentle breeze that increased a bit with time.
There were fewer people in the park today than on Saturday so fewer people stopped by to talk. We each found a group of trees to paint - those Australian pine trees with their long limbs, tall height, and with a look like a huge feather fan. What a wonderful way to spend a lovely day!
The Jaycee Park
We had another warm day on Saturday and my friend and I visited the Jaycee Park in Cape Coral, FL, at the end of Beach Parkway. Here we found some very large trees - Australian pines - that have interesting markings for landscape paintings.
These trees grow to a height of 100 feet and have long branches with a wonderful array of wispy grey-green leaves that look like a giant fan in the sky. The trunks are large, sometimes twisted, and with a variety of unusual marks and scars from long-ago cut off branches. These are the kinds of trees I love to paint for they have personality!
How Color is Affected by Adjacent Colors
A color is affected by the color next to it. Try this: Draw four squares about 2″ on a side and within each, draw another square about 1″ on a side. Paint the middle square of each the same color, say red. For the surrounding squares, use yellow, green, blue and gray respectively. Notice that the red appears different against the yellow background as compared with the others.
Another suggestion would be to set up a simple still life. Look at the various shapes of light and shadow. Mix one color and put it on the canvas, then another. Don’t worry if the color doesn’t look the same on the canvas as it did on the palette. Continue until you have the whole canvas covered. Then go back and make the corrections you need. Chances are that when you change one color, you will also have to alter the surrounding colors. This is good practice for your landscape paintings.
Colors to use for Landscape Paintings
If you are a beginner, chances are that you may need to buy paint. Inexpensive paint will work just fine as all paint consists of pigment and a binder, often linseed oil. I suggest small tubes of warm and cool varieties of the three major colors plus raw umber and white. For example, alizarin crimson and cadmium red light, cadmium yellow hue and cad yellow pale hue (cadmium is a heavy metal and is toxic, therefore always use the hue, if possible), ultramarine blue and cerulean blue.
Titanium white is probably the best white for all around use and you will probably need a large tube, but bear in mind that titanium is also toxic, so if some gets on your skin, try to wash it off as soon as possible. Personally, I use Flake White Replacement, as it is non toxic, but more difficult to find.
Also, consider the medium you might want to use to dilute the colors and/or help them to flow. In the past, I used turpentine to help the colors flow, as well as to wash my brush. However, turp is also toxic. Now, I use linseed oil for both purposes. Ordinary canola oil is good for cleaning the brushes followed by washing with ordinary hand soap or Master’s Soap, which is wonderful for getting out even dried paint.
With these few colors, you will be able to mix any color you choose in preparation for your landscape paintings.
Advancing and Receding Colors
Landscape paintings use a two-dimensional surface to show a three-dimensional scene. In order to create a believable painting, the artist must use his/her knowledge of colors and edges.
Cool colors appear further away from us than warm colors when seen from the same location.Mountains in the distance will become cooler with greater distance. Also, they will become grayer, less intense, and with edges that are less distinct. Objects in the foreground will appear to have warmer colors, more intense color, and sharper edges.