Jac’s 100 days of landscape

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Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 124 total)
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  • #1942772
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Hey there Vera, thanks for stopping by and providing some feedback! I do appreciate it. You’re totally right about the failure to capture the value/hue changes for atmospheric perspective to properly put some distance between the viewer and background.

    I knew mid-painting that I was struggling to lighten and cool my colours. I think part of the reason why was that I didn’t begin by breaking the picture down into shapes to block in like I usually do. I sort of did a dab here, a dab there, taking care not to cover up the yellowish underpainting which was my initial impression of the work. But this didn’t really work.

    I might give it another go over the weekend, come back for some revenge! 🙂

    #1942775
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 30 17/11/21

    No landscapes today, just:

    • Finished watching the section of Russian Drawing on the asaro head. I don’t feel particularly well prepared to move on from the fundamentals section, so I might crank out a few heads over the next couple weeks before I do so.
    • Worked for 2hrs-ish on the assignment, still a bit to do, which I’ll have to pick up tomorrow.

    Practice Time: 2h

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by JackJack.
    • This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by JackJack.
    #1949360
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Unfortunately other commitments have kept me from both updating this challenge and getting much art practice in. Shameful priorities.

    Day 31 18/11/21

    • Very little accomplished. I spent about 30 minutes working on the shadow values of the ear and nose of the asaro head above (but didn’t remember to take a picture).

    Practice Time: 0.5h

    Day 32 19/11/21

    • A full day of the old 9-5 and an evening meal with the family left me with no time for practice.

    Practice Time: 0 🙁

    Day 32 (second attempt!) 20/11/21

    • “Completed” the Asaro head. I could have kept on tweaking…
    • I also started to lay in a still life before it got too dark to continue.

    Practice Time: 1h

    #1950966
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 33 21/11/21

     

    • I read a chapter of Light and Colour on plein air. It covers similar ground to his other book – start with light and shade, colour the shadows in first, fill in the lights, then work in smaller and smaller shapes.
    • I watched an hour of Russian Drawing, the start of the first plaster cast drawing.
    • I completed a short still life session. I should probably work on simpler compositions, I keep finding myself quickly overwhelmed by still life subjects and then rushing. The main idea was to have cool lights from the north-facing window, and warmer shadows from the brown surface reflecting. I also worked a lot of the red apple / purple grapes into the plate – but I think I was more subtle than I needed to be, as they hardly show.

    • I got outside to attempt a plein air painting, but it was 5c on the mountains with a whipping wind, and I couldn’t hack it. I gave in after an hour. Who knows how Kyffin Williams managed it. Just as well, I didn’t really like the composition/subject I had chosen. It had obvious appeal when you’re there, but no variety to make it a good painting.

    • I did a drawing of a landscape from a reference photo of mine, which I might make a quick painting of tomorrow. The idea was just to get the composition down and the general values – which is tricky, because the values of the two trees are close to the background.  This is a familiar scene around where I live and would enjoy being able to depict the road-side trees.

     

    Practice Time: 5h

     

    #1957199
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 34 22/11/21

    • I end up working on the landscape drawing above a little longer, pushing the values a bit darker.
    • I watched a bit more of the Russian Drawing course, but I want to complete a first mor asaro heads before moving onto the casts.
    • Then I blocked in the landscape before heading to bed. I like the composition, the road pulls you in so that the first tree dominates, with the second tree or distant road a second read. I think I’m going to go with some funky unrestrained colours too. I’ll finish it tomorrow.

     

    Practice Time: 1.5h

     

    #1960469
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 35 23/11/21

     

    • I completed the landscape sketch I had started the day before. I thoroughly enjoyed working on it. I originally took the reference photo on an overcast day, with all the brilliant autumn colours totally washed out. So I thought I’d be less faithful to the reference and, instead, try to recall the short-lived luminosity that sweeps through the valley this time of year. I’ve also had Timkov on my mind (I’m trying to find a book with his paintings in) – which spurred me to be a bit bold and unnatural with some of the colour choices. Great fun.

    • I also got started drawing a small asaro head, I wanted to do a few before moving onto the next chapter in the Russian Drawing course. I’ll finish it tomorrow.

    Practice Time: 3h

    #1961922
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 36 24/11/21

    • I read a chapter in Oil Painting with Light and Color about pochades. It’s definitely piqued my interest about painting a bit smaller and being more purposeful with each stroke. Might make the second half of the challenge a 50 pochade challenge. Thinking about it.
    • I completed two smaller sketches of the asaro head, keen to keep practising the exercises from the Russian drawing course… I’m finding it challenging to “analyse and interpret” vs just copying what you see.

     

    Practice Time: 3h

     

    #1965440
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 37 25/11/21

    I didn’t get too much time today, typical Thursday!

    • I read the final chapter of Oil Painting with Light and Color on studio painting. I didn’t glean a great deal from the chapter, except the suggestion about making tree shadows warmer as they near the ground, and cooler as they extend to the sky – a suggestion I’d previously heard but not really tried.
      • On the whole, I didn’t think this book was a good as his Landscape Painting Inside and Out. It didn’t contain as much advice about how to practice.
    • The only practice I got in today was a couple sketches of some trees.

     

    Practice Time: 1h

     

    26/11/21

    Ended the day with a headache and I knew practising just wasn’t happening the second I put pencil to paper. I will hopefully do more tomorrow!

     

    #1970056
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 38 27/11/21

    • I watched the first two chapters of Kern’s Designing Your Landscape Painting. Brilliant so far. I was hesitant about starting it as it’s labelled ‘intermediate’ – but even the first demonstration provided a lot of new ideas. I could probably rewatch it and end up with a handful of other suggestions, but to start with:
      • Starting a painting with a more developed ‘wash’ of the shadows in ultramarine.
      • Add warmer colours into the sky, reds and yellows as an underpainting for the blue?
      • Add warm shadow colours at the base of trees, cooler at the top of tree masses
      • Every ‘passage’ has 2-3 colours of the same value
    • I completed four 1-hour sketches, reasonably small 6″x 8″. The intention was to try the suggestions above on a small scale (which Kearn’s recommended against!). I don’t think I really “get” painting at the small scale of pochade – a failure to simplify, I reckon.

    Practice Time: 4h

    #1972018
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 39 28/11/21

    • I worked on two tree sketches, “copies” from sections of work by Edgar Payne, the left from untitled [Eucalypti] and the right, Untitled [Eucalyptus Landscape].
    • The plan was to incorporate some of Kearn’s ideas that I could see in Payne’s painting, focusing mostly on the colour of the trees themselves – rather than composition or drawing. I learned a lot – hopefully it’ll translate into original work.

    Practice Time: 3h

    #1979178
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 40 29/11/21

    • I read the first couple chapters of Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting. The second chapter was very material-specific. The introduction was interesting, some key points jumped out at me.
      • The only way to study is to practice.
      • He reckons a few months of ‘academic’ study is enough to give a fundamental knowledge of form, chiaroscuro, proportion, etc – enough to start landscapes.
      • Great works of art are simple, but not ignorantly so, but rather by embodying the abiding qualities in the motif, omitting the dross. Superior sensitiveness.
    • I spent half an hour finishing off one of the trees from yesterday.
    • I stretched some paper and got started on David’s Ear for the Russian Drawing course too. I’m really struggling with depicting what you see vs analysing the form. I ended up using Iliya’s drawing as something of a reference to finish it off.
    • I’m considering buying a few casts to get more practice from life – if anyone knows a UK seller, let me know!

    Practice Time: 2h

    #1984264
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 41 03/11/21

    Unfortunately, I missed a couple days of art practice due to a busy day or two.

    • I’ve read another chapter of Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting on “theory of angles”. It’s obvious this “theory” has been totally absorbed by every teacher I’ve seen of landscape. The theory is essentially that planes are lighter the more perpendicular they are to the light source (which is always lighest); hence why the ground tends to be lighter than trees, etc. One thing I did takeaway from the chapter was his comments about overcast days, and how the light may be diffused and contrasts reduced, but the sky is still the lighter than everything else. Good book thus far.
    • I spent a couple hours “copying” part of a Fenske painting I found online. The aim was to match the values, improve my colour mixing, and see if I can learn a thing or two about painting trees. I’m finding these types of activities to be really fun and reasonably informative.

     

    Practice Time: 2h

    #1985531
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 42 03/11/21 (the real 3rd December, unlike yesterday)

    • I read a very interesting, somewhat eye-opening, chapter from Carlson’s Guide To Landscape. The subject was light, but the majority of it was on ‘diffraction’.
      • The gist of the lesson is that as dark masses approach the light, they get lighter. And vice versa, light objects will dark as they approach dark masses.
      • Carlson talks about holding a pencil up to the sky, the light can appear to wrap around the pencil – perhaps blotting it out all together if the light is strong enough.
      • The smaller the mass, the less dark or light it’ll be as it approaches its opposite – as diffraction has more of an effect on smaller massess.
      • He talks extensively about trees, that branches/twigs become greyer and lighter towards their edges.
      • This should be used in painting by reducing the contrasts (both value and colour) on the edges between light and dark masses – being careful to keep your values separate.
      • Carlson also mentions what I think Fenkse referred to ‘refraction’, where sky holes in trees will appear lighter than they really are the smaller the aperture.
    • I worked on an alternative angle of David’s eye for the Russian Drawing course. Unfinished. I should have worked the shadows more, but I want to move onto other things.

    #1988094
    JackJack
    Participant
    No points.

    Day 43 04/11/21 (the real 3rd December, unlike yesterday)

    • I read another chapter of Carlson’s Guide to Landscapes on Aerial Perspective.
      • Aerial Perspective is all about gradation. The atmosphere is dome-like, with veils of mist that change value and colour the more “curtains” it has to travel through.
      • So shapes further away get lighter in value; their colour also become cooler/bluer, losing yellow first and eventually red. (Except white, which gets warmer)
      • Colours can be warmed by adding red/yellow; cooled by adding blue.
      • The sky gradates because it arches towards the horizon, with more atmosphere as it travels further away. Colour-wise it begins at its zenith with a violet-blue, then true blue, green-blue, yellowish-green, orange-yellow, orange-red, and violet-red. It also gets lighter in value, up until red at the end which tends to be darker.
      • On an overcast day, the sky is lighter than the ground compared to a sunny day.
      • Trees will contain varied colours -warm green, cool green, russet, violets, reds- as well as variety in their values, but they won’t lose their cohesive value structure. Trees also tend to be darker/warmer at their base, and lighter/cooler at the top. Careful when modelling a tree to balance recognise its planes vs not overemphasising highlights such that it competes with the foreground.
      • Planes pointing toward the sky are often cooler and light; eg mountains or trees as the form ‘rolls over’.
    • I got outside for a plein air session. It went badly and, more frustratingly, I couldn’t figure out in-the-moment why I wasn’t getting anywhere. I enjoyed being outdoors, but the process was a struggle and all I ended up with was the picture on the left. It was bitterly cold, I could tell my judgement wasn’t firing properly. The experience was fairly deflating, but I was determined to draw some learning from it. So I scraped the picture back and experimented with it at home from memory. I worked on the background to try and make it recede more by lightening values, reducing contrast and adding more blue; I also added detail and more yellows and contrasts into the foreground.  I tried to get varied colours into the shadows and toyed with “diffraction” as I had learned the day before.
    • Lessons:
      • Composition. What are the basic 4-5 shapes that make up the composition? Are they interesting? Does the composition defer to the idea/motif?  Pick one subject, reduce what isn’t important.
      • Value. What’s your value hierarchy? What’s lightest, what’s darkest?
      • Process. Thumbnail first, always. Start with a compositional sketch. Then a wash in shapes to value hierarchy, if not exact values. Begin with colour in thin paint only when the picture is “working” with simple values/wash; be intentional (start with darkest first, or motif, etc). Move on to thicker paint.
      • Surface. Work on a smaller surface (this sketch was probably about 40cm x 30cm).
      • Aerial Perspective. Exaggerate aerial perspective, especially in reducing contrast of light/shadow.

    I think a key learning is simply to practice outside more, 50 plein air pochade challenge anyone?  🙂

     

    Practice Time: 4h

    #1988801
    Jo SheridanJo Sheridan
    Participant
    No points.

    Hi Jac,

    I’m enjoying having a browse through your images – It looks to me like you could live in the Peak District…. am I close?

    Jo (of 100 days above the shoulders)

Viewing 15 posts - 46 through 60 (of 124 total)

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