Jac’s 100 days of skies and trees

[Jack]

Day 36 24/08/2022

• worked for an hour on a Seago master study, still a work in progress. I know Seago worked quickly, but I’m struggling my way around his edge work and aerial perspective.

• I spent half an hour putting some finishing touches (mostly adding a bit of form to the trees and white highlights to the river) on the weekend’s piece. I liked how it turned out. It’s tempting to work on it some more, perhaps throw in more cool/warm contrasts to provide more visual interest.

• I spent time reading Kearn’s blog and a book on Edward Seago, along with Alla Prima II.

Alla Prima II

• Before starting a painting, analyse what’s before you:
  • Which side of the subject is lightest and darkest?
  • Is the light clear and sharp (sunny day effect) or diffused (overcast)? Strong cast shadows or softly modelled ones?
  • Where are the lightest areas, the darkest darks, the sharpest edges, the lost edges?
  • How warm or cool is the light source?
  • Where are the most powerful pure colours? What hue are they?
  • What sort of technique do you envision? broken colour, strong fluid brushwork, thick or thin?
  • Are there any drawing problems-in-waiting, like foreshortening, distortions or confusion?
  • Is there well balanced light on the canvas, so you can see accurately? Any glare?
  • Is the subject going to change? Flowers wilt, or sun move position?
  • Lastly, how will you crop the image before you – how much detail will you need to simplify
•  Before starting you need to know why you’re painting your subject. Try to identify tangible, paintable things:
  • Is it the colour, values, edges, shapes, subtle forms, design (relationship between masses and line), or just an experimentation.
  • Prioritise and focus on one of these things above others.
  • Visualise what your painting will look like before you start.
  • Consider what preparatory work might be needed – like an underpainting or compositional sketches.
  • Start a painting with the most important bit; where accuracy is needed. Somewhat contradictory, he then says for landscapes he starts from the further distance (sky) to foreground – scrubbing in thin layers to avoid building up layers too early. Avoid mediums too early on too, makes the surface slippery.

Practice Time: 2h

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Jack.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Jack.

[David Carter]

Keep it up, Jac!  Great work, I think the landscapes are getting more fluid, natural and colourful, lovely!

I like it when you say I really struggled with this, because that’s how I feel a lot when I draw too, but often the end result has a life of its own and the process is forgotten in time – I think it’s best to convey lightness and ease rather than struggle (subject depending obviously), but honestly I don’t see struggle in the work where you said you struggled, except perhaps with the head and torso study on 09/08/2022 but even then it looks pretty natural.  Also maybe you feel its a struggle because of Covid.  Do take care and rest up and don’t push yourself too hard – you don’t want long Covid!

Best wishes,
David.

 

[Jack]

Cheers, thanks David. It takes time, but improvement comes 🙂 Yeah, the portrait from 09/08 was a bit of a car crash – not covid related (I don’t think), it just happens.

Appreciate the support.

[Jack]

Day x 25/08/2022
I’m not going to count today toward the challenge as I didn’t actually practice skies/trees.

• I read another chapter of a book on Edward Seago, covering his post-war work when he started to find his own unique voice. He’d have been in his late 30s by then and a professional painter (aside from wartime work) since a teenager. Sometimes it seems an impossibly long time before painters come into their own (and I suppose, many never do).
• I attempted a 30 minute study from a reference photo of altocumulus clouds – but from the moment I put paint down it was just…. terrible. A bit deflating. I am having to start a weather observation diary as part of my backyard meteorology course (which I’m hoping will help in my understanding of depicting weather/atmosphere). I might start spending more time outside drawing clouds, before attempting painting them as a form of study.
• I watched a section of the Introduction to Painting Portrait course and completed a 1h study (cheating a bit, it’s supposed to be 30 mins).

Backyard Meteorology (Edx MOOC)

• Coriolis Effect
  • Important for understanding global weather effects and cyclones.
  • Observing deflection from a rotating point of view. Remember the example, where two people on opposing sides of a rotating plank of wood throw a ball to one another. If viewed from a station position, the ball will go straight. View along with the rotation of the plank, the ball appears to curve away.
  • The same is true of air molecules. If air parcels move north of the equator, they appear to be deflected to the east. If air parcels are moved south towards the equator, they appear to be deflected to the west.
  • This has an effect on hurricanes/cyclones. They spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere, and vice versa.

Climate zones

• In temperate zones, prevailing winds sweep from west to east. Precipitation often follows shifts of warm and cold fronts.
• In the tropics, prevailing winds sweet east to west, and preciptation occurs daily in the afternoon.
• Near the equator there is the ‘doldrums’, where warm air rises, but there is little surface wind – dreaded by sailors. Occasional squalls and storms.
• Earth is made up of 6 convection cells, 3 in each hemisphere.
• In the Hadley Cell (tropical), in the northern hemisphere the air rises to the top of the tropopause, then goes north to 30’ N latitude, it sinks, and returns south along low altitudes. Due to Coriolis effect, the shifts north and south aren’t straight but curved. This creates a wind from north east to south west, known as the trade winds in the first convection cell (Hadley Cell).
• In the convection cell above, called the Ferrel Cell 30’ – 60’ latitude (e.g. temperate zone, inc Britain), and movement of air is reversed with ‘Westerlies’, the prevailing surface wind is from southwest to northeast.
• The character of wind (e.g. temperature, humidity) depends on where it originates. Prevailing winds do not mean wind always comes from one direction though. There are seasonal variations too.

Making observations:

• In the Boreal summer (ie. northern hemisphere), the sun rises to the north of due east. In the Boreal winter, the rises to the south of due east. Only on the summer/winter equinox is it due east.
• Surface winds occurs for a few hundred metres above the ground. Higher altitudes (wind’s aloft) can move in a different direction and speeds.
• The presence of water during high humidity amplifies to the sensation of temperature, so hot days feel hotter, and cold days colder if it’s high humidity vs dry.
• When clouds have a lot of cloud coverage, it suggests a change in the weather.
• When taking barometer readings, account for +30mb per 1000ft/300m of altitude. Drops in pressure suggest stormy weather.

Practice Time: 1h 30

[Jack]

Day 37 26/08/2022

• I watched another lesson from Introduction to Painting Portraits and worked on another (reasonably) quick portrait. Looks a bit like a creep doll… but I wanted to stay true to the exercise of timeboxing the effort (albeit 1 hour instead of 30 mins).

• I watched week 1 of intro to inking, including spending 30 minutes just mark-making with the micron pens and dip pens. Quite novel using a brand new medium. I then spent a good hour starting the assignment which was… humbling. I got all the way to the end when suddenly a big blog of ink dropped and seeped through the page ha!

• I also spent a small bit of time on the Seago master study that has been lingering around. I’ve decided to just call it quits, at this point I’m more focused on trying to copy the original than drawing certain lessons from it. Damnit if he doesn’t make it look easy…

Kearn’s Blog

• He mentions four things that will lead to inevitable progress:
  • study great paintings in books and museums
  • read books by painters who could do it themselves
  • finding someone who paints well and get critiques, or at least take occasional workshops
  • paint steadily
• Although he lays out no priority among these, I reckon they’re in reverse order of importance.
• He also talks about ‘optical violets’, which is the occurrence of violet colours in shadows. There are two possible explanations, (1) is that it’s the blue from the sky reflecting into shadows, or (2) that its the complement to the warm colouring of bright light.
• Optical violets can be mixed with ultramarine and aliz. crimson – which he sometimes uses as the underdrawing. He says not to use cad red as this leads to browns rather than violets.

Practice Time: 3h 30

• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Jack.
• This reply was modified 1 year, 7 months ago by Jack.

[Jack]

Day 38 27/08/2022

• I spent an hour outside to start a tree study.

• I also finished watching week 1 of intro to inking and completed the assignments for the week. I wanted to have a little fun with the medium, so I did a quick sketch of a tree trunk. Good fun, but also dauntingly difficult.

 

Alla Prima II

• A finishing brushstroke is any that is visible at the end of a painting – so essentially, one you’re putting down without the intention of changing or painting over.
  There are two main block-in approaches:
  • systems that introduce accurate pictorial elements less gradually involve ‘sneaking up’ on a painting
    • typically reserve important items to the end – like highest contrast or saturated colour
    • avoid making specific commitments until the last possible moment
    • visualise the painting as a whole before the application of true colours, values, edges, drawing, etc.

• systems that introduce accurate pictorial elements quickly or even immediately bypasses sketchy stage and goes straight for actual colours and shapes
  • accurate painting starts with the first strokes
  • requires a distinct mental image of the finished painting
  • Schmid says he follows some combination of six different starting approaches:
• Option 1: Line and mass block in. Line drawing with colours placed in the boundaries. A bit paint-by-numbers.
  • drawing completed with thinned oil paint or willow charcoal
  • masses are applied using scumbling – paint scrubbed in, tube consistency or thinned.
  • When the drawing is completed, opaque painting is applied above.
  • DO NOT ‘save your lines’ by painting up to them. Paint over them.
  • Advantages: safe, controlled, allows for correction, ideal for complicated compositions
  • Drawbacks: time consuming, quality of edges might suffer

Practice Time: 3.5h

[Jack]

Day 39 28/08/2022

Unfortunately I’m writing this update a few days after the fact and I’ve totally forgotten what I worked on!

• I think I started on the last grisaille portrait for Introduction to Portrait Painting. I don’t have in-progress pictures.
• I also spent a bit of time doing a few more tree studies in ink, mostly based off Ruysdael paintings.

Tree Tutorials on Youtube

• I want to improve my trees, but unfortunately NMA doesn’t have a lot of specific tutorials for painting realistic trees in oil. So I watched some Youtube videos to see if I could glean any tips, here are some notes:
  • Paint the whole tree shape in a dark colour
  • Use the fan brush tilted to mimic the texture of leaves.
  • Edges are very important, they suggest to the viewer internal texture that isn’t necessarily there.
  • Use of liquin to apply layers more quickly.
  • Three phases:Block-in stage that is completely dry. Middle-tone.
  • Put in dark colours. He mentions a ‘tree and texture series’ by Rosemary – must look into it.
  • Highlights using the fan brush.

Kearns Blog

• Blog entry about line vs mass drawing, which is a full chapter of The Artistic Anatomy of Trees (which I intend to read for this challenge, time is ticking though!).
  • Line, he says, suggests elegance, whereas mass drawing suggests power.
  • Painters tend to think in mass. French impressionism thought almost entirely in mass.
• Romanticism vs classicism.
  • Classicism dominated the 19th century, but today it is almost non existent in mainstream art movements.Raphael, Turn and Ingres are examples of Romanticism; Delacroix and Turner examples of romanticism.
  • Romanticism is about expression. It is full of feeling, naturalistic, and excitement. It tries to stir up feelings.
  • Classicism is formal and balanced. It appeals to intellect over emotion. It aspires to permanance.
• Kearns also reviews a series of Carlson’s paintings (of Carlson’s Guide to Landscape fame). He speaks of his ability to construct good shapes; unique, varied, balanced. Some great winter depiction of trees – worth returning to in a couple months when the leaves fall.

Alla Prima II

• Continuing the various ways of starting a painting, see yesterday for number 1.
• Option 2: Transparent oil monochrome blocking
  • Complete value study done with one colour family. Effectively a monochrome underpainting.
  • You can work out all the drawing, value, edges and composition without worrying about colour. Then complete a painting on top of it with opaque paint.
  • Unlike starting with a line drawing, this method is primarily about shape design.
  • Light values achieved through removing pigment subtractively, no white is used.
  • For this to work the surface must be smooth, just enough tooth to hold the pigment. Not absorbant. This is so you can wipe away pigment back to white. Must be primed with white lead, never acrylic.
  • This is true of drawing with conte as well – you need hot pressed paper or else it’ll get into the weave of the paper and won’t erase.
  • Use slightly warm colours (red, red-brown, orange-brown earth colours) for underpainting, not cool colours.
  • Advantage: corrections can be easily made into transparent paint.

Commentary: I hadn’t considered the connection between how much a surface absorbs paint and the block-in method. Increasingly, I’ve been preferring rough textures to allow for more scrubbing in and layering alla prima – but it appears this comes at the cost of not being able to remove paint during the lay in. Something I hadn’t considered.

 

Practice Time: 3h 30

Day 40 29/08/2022

• I continued to work on the grisaille portrait. I’m only now seeing how much time it actually took for very little resolve – this is down to lack of experience I reckon. Hopefully I’ll get a bit quicker. Here’s the end product:

• I also spent 30 minutes on a few tree ink studies, which I’m enjoying even if the results are a bit poor!

• As you can tell, my focus is firmly not on trees and skies right now. I’m just enjoying Todorovitch’s course too much. Must make more time for both 🙂

Portraiture Painting (ft. Joseph Todorovitch) – Draftsmen S2E31

• Discuss about patina as opposed to alla prima, which was a new term for me in this context.
• Indirect approach, multiple passes. Once a painting is dry, something changes about its nature when you work on top of it. Don’t try and make it look like an alla prima, it’s something different.
• Layers; complexity; textural build up; nuance in surface rendering; paint quality and application. Patina is

Kearns’ Blog

• YOU CANNOT OBSERVE DESIGN INTO A PAINTING
• “If you want to make original paintings of artistic value, you will need to do more than just copy that which is before you.”

 

Practice Time: 2h 30

[Jack]

Day 41 30/08/2022

• 30 minutes outdoor sketching of trees in the garden. Really peaceful.

• 30 mins finishing up the grisaille portrait
• 1 hour starting a first colour portrait block in with a zorn palette. I’m thoroughly enjoying myself. I attempted a colour portrait about 6 months ago and it was horrendous. So orange. This already feels like a good step forward. Thanks Joseph!

Alla Prima II

Continuation of ways to start a painting:

• Option 3: Transparent Monochrome as a Finished Painting
  • Sometimes the block in can be so appealing, you won’t wait to paint over it with opaque paint.
  • You could add more transparent colours, or use sandpaper/steel wool to create textures.
  • Like option 2, it requires a smooth surface to make erasure possible. He mentions using white lead instead of acrylic gesso – or Damar varnish as size.
• Option 4: Impressionistic Block-in
  • Lends itself to landscape painting plein air, where light and colour in a picture is its main goals or when subjects lack defined mass /outline.
  • Immediate aim is to arrive at colour harmony, while avoiding any definite commitment to exact shapes, edges, and darker values.
  • Paintings start hazy, then slowly come into focus.
  • Jumble of colours start a scumble until a sense of light is achieved.
  • Little attention paid to the drawing, just a few guiding lines.
  • Establishes a colour key, around which the colour harmony is set.
  • After a certain point, you decide what of the non descript strokes he wants to turn into identifiable things.
  • Disadvantages: chance of drawing errors is high.

Practice Time: 2h

[Jack]

Day 42 31/08/2022

• Finished colour portrait sketch

Alla Prima II

• Option 5 – Full Colour Accurate Block-inRequires a very clear visualisation of the end product.
  • Light tonal wash applied or scumble over entire canvas.
  • No approximations – careful and accurate shapes, simplified like a poster image.
  • Start with sparing use of pigment applied with a flat bristle brush.
  • He recommends not dividing your initial shapes when it comes to detail, as it weakens them. Try to keep your value masses unified.

Practice Time: 2h 30

[Jack]

Day 45 01/09/2022

• Finished up the colour portrait
• Inking homework assignments, I’ll save the photo when finished.
• Quick 30 min tree sketch

Backyard Meteorology

• For clouds to form, air must be super saturated for a given air pressure and temperature – water needs a surface to stick to.
• Cloud classification system based on structure and altitude:
  • Status – flat, little discernable structure
  • Cumulus –
  • Nimbus – rain bearing, show up in two varieties. Nimbostratus and Culumonimbus (thunder storm).
  • Cirro prefix suggests clouds at high altitude containing high altitude, so cirrostratus is a high flat cloud.
  • Cirrus – wispy high altitude clouds, horse tails – caused by a change in wind speed at altitude.
  • Cirrocumulus (Mackeral’s sky) lace or patchwork of clouds, high altitude.
  • Alto – prefix for midlevel cloud.
  • Altocumulus clouds can look a bit like cirrocumulus in their patterned structure, but are discernable as they are formed by water not ice (like alto) and are puffier. They can also form rollers.
  • Altostratus – lack translucency of cirrostratus.
  • Lenticular clouds – flying saucers or almond shaped.

Practice Time: 2h

[Jack]

Day 46 02/09/2022

• Inking homework for 1 hour
• 30 minute Ruysdael tree study – experimenting with gouache and toned background

• Started a drawing portrait in conte 1 hr – not going well.

Alla Prima II

Continuing ways to start a painting.

• Option 6: Selective StartSelect a small part of the painting and finish it. Move to an adjoining part, finish that. And so. Each part is complete in terms of drawing, edges, value an colour.
  • Eliminates the ‘almost right’ stage of a block in. Skips the part where you need to correct what you’ve done.
  • Requires a very clear image of the painting beforehand, a conceptual block in.
  • Sometimes requires ‘mopping’ up afterwards, like softening edges, correcting drawing errors, or misalignment between shapes.
  • Before you start at all, however, you should answer why do it?You should approach your subject with your full awareness and perceptions of your feelings toward it.
  • Your reason for selection must go beyond just liking the subject.
  • It might be a certain mood, atmospheric effect, a facial expression, philosophy – whatever. But fix it in your mind that your painting must portray this one thing above all else.

Backyard Meteorology

• In the temperature zones, transitions between cool and warm air masses created zones of precipitation called fronts.
• An air mass is defined as extended body of air with uniform temperature, pressure and humidity. They can stretch over 100s of miles.
• Where they originate: Continental (C) masses originate over land and are dry. Maritime (M) masses originated over water and are moist.
  • Climate they originate. Tropical (T) or polar (P).
  • This gives zones designations like MT
  • Air masses affecting UK can be found here → https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather/atmosphere/air-masses/types
• In temperature zones, warm and and cold air masses take turns sweeping through. Air masses generally follow the prevailing Westerlies (for the UK).
  The boundaries between air masses are called fronts.
• Weather fronts accompanied by unstable conditions (storms, rain, etc). They’re named after the air masses that it replacing the current air mass – so if a cold mass is replacing a warm one, it’s a cold front.
• Wind and cloud patterns can appear in advance of a front. Fronts are also marked by rapid change in temperature and moisture content.

Practice Time: 3h 30

[Jack]

Day 46.2 03/09/2022

Not counting this toward the challenge as I did zero trees/sky related work.

But I was productive.

I watched 2 hrs of into to inking demos and then completed almost all the homework.

 

Practice Time: 4h

[Jack]

Okay, I’m way behind on updating the forum due to family being in town and a trip to Paris. I haven’t been spending as much time on drawing/painting as I’d like, but I should have more time for the rest of the September to renew my efforts.

Day 47 04/09/2022

• Watched the Into To Inking demo on geometric forms and completed the assignment.
• I experimented with a couple trees: ink, watercolour and gouache. Not a total success, but definitely learned a few things – namely that the tone needs to be a reasonably light, too dark and there’s no contrast.

• 30 mins working on that portrait drawing from the other day – trying to salvage something from it.

The Cloudspotters Guide 

• I really need to finish this book, it’s a light read but it’s going to take ages 3-4 pages at a time!
• One way to tell stratocumulus from altocumulus clouds is whether they are are wider than three finger width. If it is, it’s probably stratocumulus. Also the shading of altocumulus tends to be lighter. Cirrocumulus have no shading at all.
• Virga are fibrous trails of precipitation that appear below the cloudlets of altocumulus clouds. They make the cloud look a bit like a jellyfish. The precipitation evaporates before reaching the ground.

Practice Time: 3h 30

—-

Day 49 05/09/2022

• I finished reading Edward Seago by James Russell. Great overview of his work and life – glad I picked it up. I still have my book on Ruysdael in progress, and a few more waiting on the shelf.
• 1 hour on drawing portrait

• 1 hour starting the same portrait in paints
• 1 hour starting a ink study of a Constable drawing

 

Kearns Blog

• Painting on rainy days, some tips:
  • Make chromatic greys out of your colours, not black. Avoid making greys out of black, or ultramarine and burnt sienna. Make greys luminous.
  • Try to vary the warm and cool temperature shifts, exaggerate a bit if you need to.
  • Try to keep the key up – keep the light warm or blue, but not grey. There will be grey in the picture, but the overall light effect shouldn’t be grey.
  • Consider using an earth palette vs a chromatic. Kearns’ earth palette included: indian red, y. ochre (no blue or cadmiums) [unsure what else he uses, the rest of his normal palette?]
  • Look for ways of getting more light in the painting, like inventing a foreground reflective puddle.
  • Your work may not have a lot of colour or depth, so look for abstract patterns instead.
• Painting on sunny days, some tips:
  • When picking a scene, consider the movement of the sun and how it will affect the light in the scene
  • Canvas must be in the shade
  • Clear delineation between light and shadow – always know if a brushstroke is in the light or shadow.
  • Sunny day effect is about contrast of value, edges, colour, saturation, temperature, and sometimes opacy.
  • Requires a larger palette.
  • Dark accents required in a high key painting to ‘ground’ the shadows.

 

Corot’s Materials and Techniques (National Gallery)

• A bit of a rabbit-hole find, but I was curious to fill in the gaps of Kearns’ post regarding what an earth palette for landscapes might include – so I googled to find out what Corot used. I found a great article on the National Gallery website investigating a single work (’The Leaning Tree Trunk’), here are some notes:
• He used a fine canvas
• Paint was applied thinly, leaving part of the ebauche (initial sketch) or ground visible.
• He worked the surface with many small touches of paint for a shimmering effect
• Weirdly, Corot painted the sky last – adding on top any final branches/foliage.
• Ground was lead white, over which a brown translucent undercolour was painted.
• Cobalt blue was used in the sky. The middle ground greens were made up of, the author guesses, chrome yellow and Prussian blue mixture, with traces of white/red/black. There are also spots of cadmium orange.
• He used a ‘heat bodying’ (no idea what this means) walnut oil as a medium, to ensure rapid drying, glossy surface and few visible brushstrokes.

Backyard Meteorology

• Warm fronts are created when warm air mass replaces a cold air mass. A warm front is wedge shaped.
• Due to the wedge shape, there are clouds associated with incoming warm fronts – first high altitude clouds (cirrocumulus, cirrus) and then gradually lower altitude (altocumulus, stratus, nimbostratus, etc)
• Contrails are an indicator of an incoming warm front, high layer of cirrus clouds, then cumulustratus, etc. Once the sky is covered, it means rain is likely.
• To tell if rain will let up, look in the direction of the prevailing winds. If there are patches of sky, it’s a sign it’s breaking up – which is usually accompanied by fractus clouds.
• Cold fronts
  • Mass of cold dry air displaces warm moist air
  • Latent heat energy is release, often producing thunderstorms because as it moves it pushes warm air higher forming culumonimbus clouds and produce rain.
    Because cold air is denser than warm, it has a ‘plough’ like shape. It’s also faster than warm fronts.

Practice Time: 3h 30

—-

Day 50 06/09/2022

• I watched the intro to inking live class
• I spent 30 minutes on yesterday’s tree drawing

• Worked for an hour on a Ruisdael master study

—-

Alla Prima II

• The term drawing, as used by Schmid, refers not to linear representation but the character, dimensions, and relationship of elements in direct painting.
  Drawing is essentially measuring and seeing the relationship between shapes. Drawing is about specific dimensions, height and width, and isn’t a relative quality like colour, value and edges.

 

Practice Time: 1h 30m

 

—-

Day 51 07/09/2022

• Finished Ruisdael study

• Attempted to fix the colour portrait, ain’t having no luck.

Alla Prima II

• Measure using a relative system based on a reference point.
• Beginners usually over-emphasise the curviness or curves and draw them in single long curves, like in the cheekbone. Try to break curves into a series of straight lines.
• Start your drawing from the simple and obvious shapes, as they make the clearest reference points. Mistakes should stand out more clearly than if you pick a shape with ill defined edges, say.

Practice Time: 3h

—-

Day x 08/09/2022

I don’t think I managed any practice on this day, s

Kearns Blog

• There is a school of thought that suggests using temperature changes in shadows to depict reflected light is better than using value, as this conserves your value range for other purposes (ie. darker darks or lighter lights).
• Keep level of detail in shadows to a minimum, or else the effect is lost.
• When painting outdoors, pick a light / shadow scheme and stick to it. Put down the shadows in transparent colours like an optical violet or grey.
• Kearn’s follows this process: (1) draw forms and outlines transparently, avoid white, then (2) commit yourself to a light/shadow scheme by introducing colour and (3) refine without changing the light/shadow layout.

 

Over the next few days I had family in town and didn’t manage much practice. I then went to Paris. I saw plenty of art whilst there, which is great, but did very little myself. A few little sketches when we were waiting around for stuff – must do a sketchbook class. I find I’m just too slow to do anything worthwhile in less than an hour…

[Jack]

Day 52 16/09/2022

 

• 1.5 hr working on the landscape painting – woodland scene from a photograph. I’m not thrilled about it, but just needed something to jump back into the challenge.
• 30 mins penciling in the still life for the inking course

Kearns Blog

• Getting light into a painting.
  • Colour, alongside value, can be used to get a sense of light into a painting.
  • Use a different main pigment for light and shadows. So if painting a red barn, use cadmium for the light side and alizarin for the shadow.
  • The colour of the shadow is often rooted in the complement of the colour of the light. So an orange-yellow light produces blue shadows.
  • Strong value contrasts between light and dark are needed for a strong sunlit light effect.
  • Other ways of contrasted light and shadow include colour saturation (one high, one low), temperature (one cool, one warm), transparency, edges.
  • Mistakes: using black + local colour for shadows, making reflected like too bright, overmodelling lights (too many values?), too much detail in shadow, edges too hard.
  • Most mistakes are the result of painting each section from direct observation, instead of indirect observation. You don’t see a whole scene in focus at one time.
  • Unity of effect is the most important quality a picture can have.

Backyard Meteorology

• When cumulonimbus form and rise passed the tropopause, the water vapour freezes. The steering winds, which are faster than surface winds, will carry these cirrostratus ice clouds ahead of the cold front.
• Entrainment occurs when in the ‘calm before the storm’, water vapour is first carried upwards in an updraft before combining and growing in size and being deposited in a down draft. Then rain comes.
• Cold-fronts in the winter produce less extreme weather as the warm masses don’t hold as much moisture as summer.

  Practice Time: 2h 30m
  

Day 53 17/09/2022

• Watching Into To Inking still life demo and inked for 1 hour
• I spent a bit more time on the previous day’s woodland landscape – had a lot of fun shovelling paint on with the palette knife. It’s not the type of painting I want to make, the light effect is a bit… gimmicky. I’ll let it dry and circle back to it if I feel like it.

 

Practice Time: 3h

 

Day 54 18/09/22

• 2.5h painting outdoors – first time in ages, it felt good. Although the weather is getting chilly! I actually ended the session with something I’m quite pleased with, which is rare. I need to develop a few bits at home whilst the paint is still wet, then let dry, and give it another whack.

• 30 mins inking a still life started the other day. Man inking is hard! I just can’t seem to think in terms of lines instead of masses. I’m going to abandon the effort and start something simpler.

Alla Prima II

• Author breaks down study into Human Form/Anatomy, Perspective (linear and aerial), General Aspects (basic forms, balance, unity, clarity, simplification, managing detail, emphasis, negative space), proportions, alignment,
• Recommended reading: Atlas of Human Anatomy for Artists (Stephen Rogers Peck).
• Chapter 5: Values
  • “Flemish value scale” = 0-4 the light values, 5 is middle tone, 6-9 dark values.
  • Very light or very dark elements of a painting are accents.
  • Because we only have a few values compared to nature, we must strive for a light effect rather than a replica.
  • Sunlit effect requires strong value contrasts – but this means a lack of colour in the darkest and highest value ranges. Also, the pupils contract and we see fewer values when it’s bright out.
  • We see more colours in cooler softer light (e.g. overcast days) than in bright sunshine.
  • In gradually dimming light – evening or winter afternoons – our ability to see differences between dark values and colour diminishes as the light gets weaker. All the darks start looking the same.
  • Italian Renaissance painters emphasised chiaroscuro, relying on strong value contrasts.

Kearn’s Blog

• Indirect observation. He repeats the, “paint the hands as you see them when looking at the face”.
• Similarly, work big to small. ‘Start out with a shovel, end with a needle”.
• Whites
  • Adding cad pale can appear brighter than pure white
  • Remember every drop of white kills the colour
  • “adding white may take you to the value you need to describe something in the light,but it will not give you the color of something in the light, generally in the landscape you will need a warm yellow- red color, that is very high key, but still perceptible” – I’m not sure what he means here.

Practice Time: 3h

[Jack]

Day 55 19/09/22

 

• 1h 45m outside on a sketch of two trees, I had to wrap up quickly to catch a lift home – where I worked for another hour. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures of it in progress.
• I read a few articles from Kearn’s blog. All good stuff, but nothing I want to call out.

Practice Time: 2h 45

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Day 56 20/09/22

• I think I managed an hour only, working on the Corn Mill painting – the sky mostly, which was giving me no end of trouble. Still not happy.

Alla Prima II

• Identifying and simplifying values:
• Squint to remove details. Look for the lightest light, darkest dark, and mid values.
• Identify the value hierarchy, the value relationships of your subject.
• Shmidt uses just 5 values for the block-in. He tries not to subdivide these value masses further, using colour instead to refine and add detail.
• Comparison is key; edges, values, colour, drawing. Question whether shapes are the same or different, if they’re different, how exactly?
• Stepping back is another effective measure for simplifying what you see and comparing your painting to the subject.
• Use a mirror to identify errors that are more obvious in reverse
• Don’t squint for colour (they just darken), or to judge the true value of a shape. Squinting is just for relationships and simplification.
• If you look wide-eyed into specific areas, like a cloud or a shadow, you’re going to see more values than you should paint, rather than fewer.
• Don’t squint at the painting – it only hides mistakes.
• Conservation of value:
  • Masters of the past rarely utilised more than 5 value masses – except in areas of transition or soft edges.
    A few clear-cut values will give a more powerful visual effect than many small changes in value (overmodeling).
    Colour temperature can often be used instead of value changes.

Kearns

• Funnily enough, Kearn’s mentions the very same ‘Conservation of Values’ idea that I just finished reading about in Alla Prima II. “Rather than using a new value to describe each change of plane in a form, they [Hensche students] used a different color or color temperature, delicate stuff.”
• A hand selection of Kearn’s list of key phrases. It’s in all-caps, straight from the source!
  • IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON WHAT THE PAINTING ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE!
  • Design is imposed on nature, not discovered there.
  • I SELECT AND HANG THE VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF THE LANDSCAPE BEFORE ME ONTO A SCAFFOLD CALLED DESIGN. I INVENT THIS SCAFFOLD MYSELF, RATHER THAN FINDING IT IN NATURE.
  • NATURE HAS NO STYLE. STYLE IS INSTALLED AND NOT DISCOVERED BY THE ARTIST.
  • DO EVERYTHING WITH THE LARGEST BRUSH POSSIBLE.
  • NO ONE CAN TEACH YOU TO DO ANYTHING IN ART, THAT THEY CAN’T DO THEMSELVES!
  • THE DARKEST DARK IN THE LIGHTS IS ALWAYS LIGHTER THAN THE LIGHTEST LIGHT IN THE DARKS.
  • OBSERVATION SHOULD NOT RULE , BUT SUGGEST EXECUTION
  • A PAINTING SHOULD NOT BE DANCING ABOUT WITH ITS PANTS DOWN AROUND ITS ANKLES!
  • IT IS NOT WHAT THE ARTISTS FEELS, INTENDS OR EXPLAINS THAT IS IMPORTANT! WHAT IS IMPORTANT, IS WHAT THE ARTIST EXPRESSES.
  • IN AN IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING THE COLOR IS MADE TO “VIBRATE” BY THE JUXTAPOSITION OF DIFFERING NOTES USUALLY OF THE SAME VALUE.
  • STYLE IS HOW IT IS A PICTURE OF, RATHER THAN WHAT IT IS A PICTURE OF.
  • A PAINTING SHOULD NOT BE MISTAKEN FOR A WINDOW. A VIEW OUT OF A WINDOW IS STYLELESS. VISION IS STYLELESS.

Practice Time: 1h

 

Day 57 21/09/2022

• Spent an hour to ‘finish’ the Corn Mill painting. Not totally happy with it, but I’ll let it dry and see what’s what.

 

Day 58 22/09/2022

• Spent more time on the tree sketch from the previous Sunday. I’m never totally happy, but happy to let this one breathe for a while.

More Kearns Quotes:

• IT IS HOW IT IS A PICTURE OF, AND NOT WHAT IT IS A PICTURE OF, THAT IS IMPORTANT!
• PAINTING SHOULD GET HARDER FOR YOU RATHER THAN EASIER. THE BETTER YOU GET AT IT, THE HARDER IT WILL BE.
• Light and shadow contrast: Those contrasts are of value, color, saturation, pigment, temperature, and sometimes opacity.
• EVERYTHING IS EITHER IN THE LIGHT OR IN THE SHADOW! THERE IS NO OTHER PLACE.
• UNITY OF EFFECT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT QUALITY A PICTURE CAN HAVE.
• “Stepping stone theory” for a career as a professional painter:ANY TIME I WAS DOING WELL IN A GALLERY, OR SHOP, OR HAD A BIG CLIENT BUYING MY ART, IT WAS A STEPPING STONE THAT WOULD IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO SINK UNDER MY WEIGHT. SO I HAD TO ALWAYS BE LOOKING FOR WHERE I WAS GOING TO STEP NEXT, WHEN THE STONE INEVITABLY SANK BENEATH ME. THE STONE I STEPPED ON AFTER THAT WOULD IMMEDIATELY BEGIN TO SINK WHEN I STEPPED ON IT TOO.

Alla Prima II

• Highlights are seldom as bright as they seem. Don’t paint them all.
  Install a highlight hierarchy.
  Dark accents are almost always relatively warm (transparent red oxide + aliz crim + blue)

Practice Time: 1h 30m

[Author]

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