Landscape Painting - Mystery

We need mystery in  a good landscape painting. What could be less interesting than a painting of a sunny day with birds and a big sun in the sky?

How to go about it? 

That's a great question. Certainly less is more as a way of painting would be a good start.Less detail, less rendering and simplified color. 

Often creating a good landscape painting or any work of art can be more of a process of removal more than addition. Getting lost, then found.

"Early Morning Field" (6x9) by M Francis McCarthy

I try to use a minimal amount of strokes in my paintings. Lately I've been becoming more aware of the presence of the illustrator in my work.

Illustrating mystery into a painting is more difficult that just painting in a less controlled way.It seems that implication not illustration is the name of the game.

If mystery in painting gets your juices flowing. Tonalism is the way to go. 

Tonalism is all about that mysterious time of quiet twilight, when the air is still and all you hear are the crickets. The sky is golden light and in the shadows you can just make out the lush greens of life.

To achieve more mystery in your work: darken your pallet down a key or as I'm rediscovering you can actually tone your paintings with an oil glaze after they are dry to get some awesome effects. Also you can simplify your brushwork by using a larger brush and less brush strokes.

Pictorialism

Some of you may be wondering what happened to that blog I mentioned on Tonalism. Well I'll be honest it was way to much work to re-write information, chase facts, names ect. So I bagged it.

One reason I've been able to keep this blog up (though it too requires a good bit of work) is because here I tend to write mostly about what comes from me and my experience.

I also like to post about great art movements and artists that I find to be cool once in a while. And that leads us to today's topic Pictorialism

The Big White Cloud by Edward Steichen

Pictorialism was a photographic movement that ran along side Tonalism starting in the late 19th century. One of it's greatest proponents was Alfred Edward Stieglitz along with his magazine Camera Work. Most of the images I've posted here are from various issues of Camera Work

Dawn by Alice Boughton

What many of these photographers were attempting to do was paint with light. Many times the negatives and prints were highly manipulated to get a desired effect. 

Many Pictorialist works were created using photogravure. A process very like etching that can produce stunning one of a kind prints. 

Here's a link to great site with many awesome images dedicated to photogravure past and present.

Toucques Valley by Robert Demachy

I love the moody atmospheric quality of pictorialism and it has been a huge influence on my painting along with Tonalism. Unlike Tonalism though I hadn't even heard about Pictorialism until I started studying photography in earnest after I'd arrived in New Zealand.

What attracts me most to Pictorialism is the emotive quality and high art aesthetic  that most Pictorialist photos seem to have. Dramatic contrasts blended with blurred edges and enigmatic subjects to create many moving and memorable Pictorialist images.

Speaking of Photography, I am a keen, semi-advanced hobbyist. I post a lot of photos on Flicker. My Flickr page is here. Have a gander if you're inclined.

Cheers,

Landscape Painting - Tonalism

Lets chat a bit about Tonalism today.

Tonalism was a movement in American landscape painting that lasted from about 1870 to 1920 or so. 

As a movement it was heavily influenced both by the Hudson river and Luminist schools that came before it but most importantly by the French Barbizon movement.

Here's a bit I wrote about Tonalism in an old blog:

"Tonalism is about a poetic interpretation of the emotive response we have to nature. It's about using the landscape and paint to convey emotion through the picture plain and into the mind and heart of the viewer. It is much more than a "tone" or any color effect or style. 

Tonalism is often a bit diffused but it is not about that either. It's about expressing the plane just below the surface of life/nature  and the emotive currents of the scene  it's light, space and colors fractured as brushed paint"

Autumn Meadow (8x10) by M Francis McCarthy

My attraction to this lost mode of expression came as a response to the work of George Inness. I've spoken about George before and I'm certain to again as his influence on my landscape painting is massive.

While I have never copied Inness I have probably read most every book out there about him and I believe that his achievement in landscape painting has not been equaled by anyone since.

The paintings of Inness contain very high spiritual attributes. This is not an accident as George Inness was a man driven by spirituality to an extreme.

There are many other great Tonalist painters I admire like Charles Warren Eaton, Robert Swain Gifford, Lowell Birge Harrison and John La Farge. But Inness was my first big draw.

Autumn Meadow (5x7) by M Francis McCarthy

Is Tonalism making a comeback?

I cannot say that I know. All I know is that I personally resonate with this mode of painting. I've see quite a few modern artists attempt Tonalism. Not many of them have succeeded in my view. A big exception is Dennis Sheehan, no doubt there are others I'm not aware of too.

If you are interested in learning more about Tonalism I reccomend this book highly: A History of American Tonalism,1880-1920. 

It doesn't look like Amazon is selling it directly anymore. I hope it's not out of print. I'd pick it up if you even remotely interested in American Landscape Painting as it is a great book. 

In fact I own two copies. One for the studio and one here at my home office.

Cheers,

Landscape Painting - Surface

My visit to the de Young Museum left me with two things. A big interest in pre impressionist American landscape painting, like the Hudson river school, the Luminists and most importantly Tonalism. And, I also learned to pay special attention to a paintings surface quality. I wanted my paintings to to have some of that classic feeling that I saw in the paintings of past landscape masters and I knew surface quality was a big part of the equation.

I abandoned canvas in favor of painting directly on wood panel. Liquin also factored in my new approach to surface quality as it allowed me to quickly layer colors while building a nice surface with paint, Liquin, the wood grain and my layers of clear gesso over the bare wood.

Late Summer (6x9) Pond by M Francis McCarthy

Surface quality in a painting refers to the texture and reflective quality of the paintings finish. This aspect of a painting becomes most apparent when viewing the original piece obliquely but also effects the viewers spacial reference to and appreciation of, the painting.

Many great old paintings, often done on wood or heavily gesso'ed canvas, exude an awesome character that seems to be missing from a lot of modern work. 

One reason is because many of today's painters, paint directly on top a store bought canvas's natty acrylic white pre-prepped surface. I'm not dissing them but I am saying that you get back what you put out. A cheap start will lead to a cheap finish, or it can.

I feel that every stage of the painting should be done with love and care. Starting from using a properly prepared board or canvas. Here above are the Kauri Boards that I'm using for my current series. They are 100% lovely Kauri Marine plywood:

Marine plywood is manufactured from durable face and core veneers, with few defects so it performs longer in humid and wet conditions and resists delaminating and fungal attack. Its construction is such that it can be used in environments where it is exposed to moisture for long periods. Each wood veneer will be from durable tropical hardwoods, have negligible core gap, limiting the chance of trapping water in the plywood and hence providing a solid and stable glue bond. It uses an exterior Water and Boil Proof (WBP) glue similar to most exterior plywoods.

Marine plywood is frequently used in the construction of docks and boats. It is much more expensive than standard plywood: the cost for a typical 4-foot by 8-foot 1/2-inch thick board is roughly $75 to $100 U.S. or around $2.5 per square foot, which is about three times as expensive as standard plywood.

I prep my boards with two to three coats of sanding sealer and sand them in between. As stated, marine ply costs three times more than the cheap stuff  but you can feel the quality when your painting on it vs pine or another cheaper product. 

BTW pine can be nice for smaller paintings. I prefer when painting small to use a textured surface anyway. I create the texture for my 5x5's and 5x7's using clear acrylic gesso, paper and the side of a brush to create a nice uniform yet varied surface texture that will grab paint off of my brush.

For my more finished paintings I like to utilize the wood texture inherent in my substrate and also create more texture with my brush strokes. I work quiet thin so sometimes the paintings surface is only perturbed slightly form the flat wood grain. 

A trail is left by the all work that went into the painting and the paintings surface tells that tale. Eloquently I hope, if not ant least the attempt was made and attention was paid.

Landscape Painting Thoughts

Lately I've gotten around to sorting through years of photos of paintings in progress, reference pics and photos of failed attempts as well. What a ton of work it's been!

That work is going into a major update to my website landscapepainter.co.nz. I've tried a few online web services but I've settled on Ezgenerator. It's template driven but very flexible in it's own way. Can't say I enjoy doing the web work but needs must.

It will pay off for this blog too as I've discovered many litle forgotten gems that I'll be sharing as we progress along here at blog central.

M Francis McCarthy with a painting by George Inness

Me and my hero's work at the de Young museum in San Francisco, California. They have a nice wing of great American Landscape Painting that was a big influence on me after I saw the original works on display there.

Pond Reflections 6x8 by M Francis McCarthy

I started painting in a Impressionist vein. "Pond Reflections" reflects this style. As I've said before, I believe that many landscape painters are working in an Impressionist manner whether they are aware of it or not.

I know I was in the period I painted this. This painting was done with a super limited pallet of Cad Yellow, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium white. I was influenced in that color pallet by Kevin Macpherson who has written a few great books on Painting: Landscape Painting Inside & Out  and Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light & Color. I recommend both of these books highly.

Hey, if your a real serious M Francisophile you can check out my first long abandoned blog The Rebel Artist. I keep it up just for fun. It documents a pretty good chunk of my early painting progression and I still like a lot of those paintings and will probably revisit a few of the motifs before I'm done landscape painting.

Cheers.

Landscape Painting - Revisting a Theme

This painting was done back in 2009. I've recently revisited the theme again in a larger format with a different feel.

Creek Reflections (6x9) by M Francis McCarthy

I'm fond of this older 6x9 painting. It was painted on a maple panel that I textured with gesso. I was freshly under the spell of Tonalism and this panting reflects that. It has been painted with thousands of tiny strokes and is very diffused. It took me awhile to develop my brushwork so that is is diffuse yet articulated.

Creek Reflections (8x12) by M Francis McCarthy

When seen reduced like this the newer "Creek Reflection" seems as diffuse as his smaller brother. Here's a detail.

Is it better? Just different really, both are nice paintings. I prefer the brushwork in the newer image though because it has character while still being somewhat diffuse. 

Re the color shift between the two versions, that's more a function of my Tonalist re-expression of the theme. 

I decided that for this painting that I wanted to eliminate blue from my pallet and used black as a blue substitute. 

While this may seem odd to modern artistic intentions, artists prior to the late 1800's had scant access to blue pigments. It wasn't until the invention and marketing to artists of synthetic ultramarine blue that artists could really use blue as we do today. 

Prior to this, natural blue pigments were very expensive and hard to grind. As a result many artists used black as a blue. It actually works well as lead white and ivory black make a cool grey. 

I enjoy painting the same subjects more than once. I will usually investigate a new avenue rather than a direct copy. Copying a smaller piece up to a lager size can be rewarding but it's not as fun or artistic. 

This touches on another topic though which I've been thinking of writing about. That is how we as artists perceive our work and ourselves in comparison to past work and accomplishments. A philosophical topic I'll get into tomorrow...

Landscape - Tone

Tonight I thought it would be nice to expand upon tone. I like the word tone as is is a open word with interesting connotations. Quite an ambiguous term when you ponder it, as we are going to now.

I use Tone to mean resonance/value. Also implied in the word tone is color harmony. I will often tilt the colors in a painting towards a unified tone. Yellows of all stripes are a favorite but I will use just about any hue as a unifying tone with the general exception of green as greens are such a present color already in most landscapes.

Tranquil Field (11x15) by M Francis McCarthy

The unifying hue here in "Tranquil Field" is a warm yellow tone. There is also a strong resonance of sienna from the paintings foundation. If you read yesterdays post about Tonalist limitation of values, you can see that the whitest parts of the clouds are far short of an actual white.

The lightest parts of a painting reveal it's unifying tone the most because it's harder to perceive color in shadow areas. The dark's can definitely be tilted towards warm or cool in any painting though.

There are times that I will glaze a very light wash of color over an entire painting but more often I set up my colors in advance to harmonize. Glazing an entire painting tends to darken it and you've got to be really restrained if you try it or there's a good chance of ruining your painting.

Tranquil Field (5x7) by M Francis McCarthy

Here's the oil sketch for "Tranquil Field". I've been posting my oil sketches with there larger brothers regularly because I feel it's illuminating. Also, I like to give my little paintings some attention. There have been times that I liked my small 5x7 better than it's larger brother but usually I think they're both good for different reasons.

My approach to the small paintings is very direct and immediate. At the same time I'm looking towards the harmonies that will resonate through the larger version of the scene. 

Today's picture "Tranquil Field" can currently be viewed in my studio at the Quarry arts center, Whangarei.

Using just some of the notes...

A gentleman came into my studio today and we we're discussing painting and art in general. He remarked that he liked my work and that it had a pleasant "old time" feel.

I responded that my art was greatly influenced by a painting movement called Tonalism. Tonalism ran concurrent with Impressionism and was popular from the late 1800's to early 20th century. I believe most landscape painters these days to be of an impressionist bent whether they are aware of it or not.

Country Road (12x12) by M Francis McCarthy

One distinction between the two styles is that Tonalism uses fewer notes than impressionism. By that I mean that if you look at the value scale here below:

You see the entire range of values from white to black as 10 divisions. You could also see these as notes, like piano keys on a piano. 

Many paintings done in an impressionist way utilize the entire value scale from brightest to darkest values. A Tonalist approach usually holds way back. In my paintings I generally eliminate the brightest values from the ten step scale. and I often use even less of the available values. 

This is what I mean by "using just some of the notes". The benefit in doing this is a more cohesive and harmonic painting that creates a unified "tone". There are drawbacks too, and the greatest one is creating paintings that are too dark for brighter spaces. The benefit though is a greater conveyance of feeling and a generally more meditative quality

Country Road (5x5) by M Francis McCarthy

Today's picture "Country Road" is good example of the ideas in today's post. The 12x12 can be viewed at my studio at the Quarry arts centre in Whangarei. the 5x5 oil sketch is in a private collection now.

Landscape Painting Edges

Well, as the end of the worlds been postponed I guess it's incumbent on me to keep up this blog. Today I want to write about edges in painting. I'm posting a couple of recent paintings just for illustration. I could have posted just about any landscape painting that I've done as I very consistently pursue a certain edge quality in my work.

Clearing Storm  8x10                                 M Francis McCarthy

That quality is all about getting the edges right. I cannot say that I always achieve the effect I want but that is one reason painting still fascinates me after doing it for a while now. Many great artists have mastered edges and deserve close study. Some that come to mind are George Inness and the French painter Corot. How a painter handles edges is one of the greatest determiners of what their style is.

Fleeting Light 8x10                                                               M Francis McCarthy

Below is a detail of "Fleeting Light" that shows a bit of my particular way of handling edges. Every painting is full of different edges and all must be approached in the appropriate manner for what is being rendered and the of the painting itself.

Fleeting Light (Detail)                                                           M Francis McCarthy

I'm focusing on the sky/tree edge challenge here because frankly it's the greatest challenge for me in any painting. This is because the sky is the brightest part of most landscape paintings and the vertical trees against it are generally the darkest part. Because of this inherent contrast difference the transition from light to dark has to done with care or the painter runs the risk of creating a cutout appearance in his scenes.

Camille Corot                                             Three Trees with a View of the Lake

Above is a painting by Camille Corot. In my opinion Corot is one of the greatest edge painters ever!I saw many of his original works on my trip to the Louvre in Paris. Corot took a sort of flecky approach to his edges. They appear to be built up in many layers and there is always a feeling of air and silvery light in his work. He is a great guy to study. Any painter who's doing edges in a way you admire is good to study I reckon. I may revisit this topic in a later blog as it's absolutely crucial to creating a good landscape painting.

Charles Warren Eaton

Charles Warren Eaton (1857–1937) was an American artist best known for his tonalist landscapes.

He is remembered in American art history as one of the chief members of the Tonalist movement, along with Henry Ward Ranger, Elliott Daingerfield, and others who benefited from the lessons of French Barbizon painting and, more immediately, from the example of the poetic style of George Inness. 

Guided by his desire to convey the underlying moods of nature, he eschewed grandiose vistas in favor of quieter, more intimate views, which he depicted at dawn or dusk. His landscapes still speak to us in a quiet but consistent way of the beauty of nature and of those unexpected and felicitous moments when the man-made and natural worlds merge into unified and harmonious images.

What I love most about Eaton is the way he flattens his shapes and his way with mood and color. Detail is almost completely sublimated to atmosphere. Also his edge handling is among the best of any Tonalist painter

George Inness

I mentioned George in my last post. Really a huge influence on my painting and a towering figure of 19th century painting. Here's a few of his works:

From Wikipedia:    George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was an influential American landscape painter. His work was influenced, in turn, by that of the old masters, the Hudson River school, the Barbizon school, and, finally, by the theology of Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritualism found vivid expression in the work of Inness' maturity. Often called "the father of American landscape painting," Inness is best known for these mature works that not only exemplified the Tonalist movement but also displayed an original and uniquely American style.

Before I came across Inness I was influences more by Impressionism. A movement that really caught on again in the 80's and 90's and is now a huge part of the modern landscape painters vocabulary to the point I think that many painters are not even aware of it's pervasive influence.

George Inness was to foremost painter of the late 19th and early 20th century movement called Tonalism. From Wikipedia: 

Tonalism was an artistic style that emerged in the 1880s when American artists began to paint landscape forms with an overall tone of colored atmosphere or mist. Between 1880 and 1915, dark, neutral hues such as gray, brown or blue, often dominated compositions by artists associated with the style. During the late 1890s, American art critics began to use the term "tonal" to describe these works. Two of the leading associated painters were George Inness and James McNeill Whistler.

I'll write more about Tonalism in the future as I have many thoughts about the style that I'd like to share. In a nutshell for now I'll say that to me, it's about creating an evocative, atmospheric approach to the landscape. 

I never have tried to ape George Inness but to any artist familiar with his art the debts I owe him are apparent and I never shy away from acknowledging his great contribution to the art of landscape painting. A contribution that frankly has not made it's way into the minds and hearts of the modern art lover in any way near what George Inness and the modern art viewer deserves

Direct vs Indirect Painting

A welcome friend                                                     M Francis McCarthy

"Why are your paintings so dark?"

I get asked this once in awhile at my studio by visitors. I reply that the paintings are rendered in a lower key than what is currently fashionable. Also, to my eyes many modern landscapes seem excessively bright and their colors too chromatic and lacking in subtlety.

Paintings that are made using transparent or semi opaque layers tend to need a lot more light on them to reveal themselves at their best. For this reason many of these types of paintings benefit from having a light directly on them.

There are two distinct approaches to painting; direct and indirect. Good examples of direct painting are artists like: Monet, William Merritt Chase and Vincent Van Gogh. Good examples of indirect painting are: George Inness, Charles Warren Eaton and Whistler. You can do great stuff either way or by combining the approaches.

I prefer indirect for my final paintings as it can convey multiple layers of mood and color. Also because I can reflect and correct as I go but ideally there is a trail of movement just below the surface that shows the structure as well as the finish. I enjoy painting my oil sketches directly as they are small and quickly realized.

Layering transparent glazes of oil tends to darken as the light source must work it's way through the layers and bounce back to the viewer. More opaque styles reflect the source light more directly from the surface.

Late Summer                                                    M Francis McCarthy

You would think that the study would be lighter but it is dark because I'm heading towards a larger more fully realized version. The study above "Late Summer" has just been more fully painted. I hope to put it up here sometime soon.

As a side bar. On my recent trip to Paris I saw many excellent paintings at the Louvre. Many of them would be considered quite dark. What was interesting to me as a modern painter was the focused use of intent contrasts between the lights and dark's in a painting that drew the views eye to where the painter wanted it. Someting thats hard to do if the whole painting is light.