Our trek through landscapes that inspired Canada's Tom Thomson and The Group of Seven
3/25/2021 1:58:42 PM
The past few months have seen me engrossed in small studies -- studies where I'm not trying to create a masterpiece; where my goal is to explore and experiment.
A study might involve looking at the earth from a different view point, such as from satellite.
A study might abstract an old vineyard.
A study might test a drawing technique.
Whatever my goal, the idea is to expand my thinking and minimize my fear of failure. A study might not work out but with directed failure comes progress. I hope to improve as an artist through these studies.
I'm selecting 6-8 of my studies to frame them for display this Spring.
Maybe these ...
11/28/2020 12:21:24 PM
With a vast landscape in front of me, how do I choose what to paint?
The most important four lines in my work are the boundaries of my picture plane. This is my watercolour world. My window. My playground.
To help me pick that window, I carry with me about three different mattes. The matte shown above has an aspect ratio of 3 to 5. That is, I can paint a small watercolour of size 3" by 5" or scale that to something like 15" by 25" (approx. 38 cm x 64 cm). The frame ratio is fixed 3:5. If I hold the matte at full arm's length I capture a small part of the scene. If I move the matte closer to my eyes, I capture a larger part of the scene. I can hold the matte in landscape mode (above) or turn the matte at right angles for portrait mode. My mattes are marked in thirds and halves. Thirds are important for strong compositions. These marks and the window help me correctly position major shapes and lines.
My "landscape mattes" are simple tools that help me plan and prepare my plein air watercolours.
9/13/2020 12:14:31 PM
Rice was on sale recently at our local grocery store. Normally that wouldn't interest me, but when I saw these rice bags my "art mind" clicked into gear.
"Wow", I thought, "those are strong, zippered canvas bags ... and a good size". If I replaced the rice with rocks they would make great weights to hold down my plein air easel in strong wind. Why buy rock bags from art stores when you can get them for free with a purchase of 3.63 kg rice?
You see, one of the several hazards of plein air painting is having a gust topple your easel. This happened more than once to Anne. I still recall the gust that lifted her easel and face-planted her freshly painted oil into the sand. Her work was instantly transformed to multi-media. She was lucky that an onlooker had photographed and shared a photo of her work just prior to the accident.
Before wind (left). After wind (right)
Personally, I'm impressed with the sandy version of her oil painting.
8/24/2020 9:01:35 AM
Artists agree that success is often powered by how tones/values are treated in a watercolour painting.
Link mid-tones. Apply greatest tonal contrast at your focal point. Consider the arrangement of your tones.
When I study my scene, I create thumbnail sketches to select my tones and compose the arrangement of tones. Others take grey-scale images of a scene or use grey-scale cards. Some blur their eyes. Yet for some lucky others, tonal work is intuitive and they skip these studies.
Here are three tonal steps I consider when preparing a plein air work.
STEP 1 (explore and study the full tonal range in the scene)
STEP 2 (link mid-tones)
STEP 3 (select high-contrast areas, especially at a focal point and secondary "resting places" in a scene)
As an artist, I can change what I see to suit the mood I wish to convey. One of my favourite artists writes "do not feel captive to what you see". After considering my tones and experimenting with some colours I created the following watercolour from the above study.
7/19/2020 5:49:50 PM
I use transparent watercolours for a purpose. They are transparent.
Look what happens when I apply YELLOW paint (Quinacridone Gold) over the left-hand side of four, dry strips of red. They turn orange. Look what happens when I apply BLUE paint (French Ultramarine Blue) over similar dry four strips of red. They turn purple.
Similar changes in colour would be seen by applying YELLOW over BLUE to make green.
Since grass and trees are green I wanted to see what would happen if I painted a scene in yellow (of different intensities), let it dry, then apply blue over the yellow. The result of this test is shown below. I mixed no green in this painting, not on my palette and not on the watercolour paper. Green appears because I glazed transparent blue over a dry yellow base. Neat.
7/9/2020 10:27:26 PM
Watercolour painting, whether done in the studio or en plein air, takes planning and part of that process for me is the creation of thumbnail sketches. Sometimes I take 30+ minutes or so at this stage -- the better the plan, the greater chance of success.
My first sketches are black and white thumbnails. Here, I try to decide on what to paint, what not to paint, my composition and focal point. Sometimes this is followed by a tonal study. In order to capture the colours I see or wish to interpret I create another thumbnail, this time in watercolours. I have found capturing colours can come in handy if I have to leave unexpectedly (an attack by blackflies for example) so that transferring those same colours onto my larger watercolour painting is made easier.
Here are thumbnails for my watercolour "Taking the 219 at Margaree Harbour". Of importance to me were the shadows across the road, the arrangement of buildings on the farm and the restricted palette of colours.
The final watercolour, as a result of this planning can be seen HERE.
