Unify, Simplify, Amplify

Greetings again from the land of Zed.

Yesterday I said I'd talk about the other note on my easel in my studio.

That Note says: "Unify, Simplify, Amplify" I borrow the term from Ken Carbone over at

Co Design He uses  it for marketing advice but I think it applies very well to landscape painting also.

When we create a landscape painting it has no reason to exist other than it pleases the eye of the beholder. If it does not accomplish this there is nothing else that it can be used for other than to possibly re-use the canvas for another painting.

"Spring Light" (Final)  8x10 by M Francis McCarthy

So how does this motto this help us create beautiful pictures that deserve to be beheld? 

Let's beak it down with some bullets:

• Unify - This mean that every part of the painting should work with every other part. Some aspects dominant while others supportive but all parts must reflect and coordinate with each other to create a unified whole.
• Simplify - This directs us to look for and represent in our painting a simplified pattern of pleasing large shapes subdivided by smaller pleasing shapes. Simplifying the scene is vital to create unity and amplification. It is difficult to create unity from immense amounts of detail all vying for the eyes attention.
• Amplify - Much of what I said yesterday about "More Light, More Dark, More Color", falls into this area. Adding contrast and amping up the color create more interest and attraction for the viewer. However to sucessfully amplify a picture it must be clear before it is amplified. Otherwise you just get a loud mess. 

"Spring Light" (First Revision)  8x10 by M Francis McCarthy

Together these three ideas add up to better paintings. It's taken me awhile to apply these concepts to my landscape painting. But I always tried for a similar result when I worked as an illustrator. 

It's only recently that I've become aware of the core differences between illustrating and landscape painting. I will expound on this more in a future post as it's definitely something I thought I knew all about. In reality I had it Wrong with a capital "W".

"Spring Light" (Original Painting)  8x10 by M Francis McCarthy

Okay, Lets talk about what I did to "Spring Light". 

This painting has actually been revised twice. The original was painted last year and I repainted it around February. 

I had the original up on my studio wall for quite awhile and though I liked the atmospheric quality I was bothered by elements of the picture. Heres how I addressed those bothersome areas.

First revision:

• Removed the hill from the background. This was creating an unpleasant downward arrow where the tree and hill met.
• Softened the diagonal band of clouds in the sky.
• Simplified the background and the sky.
• In the foreground I painted in a path or river coming in from the right. This only sorta was an improvement. Still, I was happy to be abandoning my photo reference and be creating with just imagination.
• Added a clump of trees to the right side where the previous hill had crested.
• Closed off the left side clump of trees. This helps direct the viewer's eye in a more pleasing manner and creates intimacy in the scene as well.

The revised "Spring Path" sat on my wall for another few months. I was happier but still not satisfied. Heres what I did to reach the final version.

Second Revision:

• Lowered the hills and indicated the horizon with a streak of distant foliage.
• Reworked the sky losing the diagonal completely.
• Increased the lightness at the base of the sky.
• Painted away my previous path from the left adding a pool or puddle of water in the center instead.
• Made the meadow behind the trees brighter.
• Softened the tops of the trees in the clump on the right.

All in all I am pleased with the result. I feel that "Spring Light" now has a feeling of intimacy, space and a peaceful quality that rewards the viewer. 

"Spring Light" is currently on display at my studio in the Quarry Arts Center' Whangarei, New Zealand. Feel free to come and check it out.

Cheers,

More Light, More Dark, More Color

Howdy folks,

Back from my extended stay in the studio, amongst other worthwhile pursuits.

I'm still busily reworking paintings I've done over the last year. Not all of them but far more than I thought I would when I began this revision process a few months ago.

Generally speaking for most of my artistic life, I've been hesitant to revise my work.

However since I made a quantum leap in my understanding of painting a few months back. What painting is. What it can be and what I want it to be for me as an artist. I've had to change my way of working in light of this greater capacity to see and address the shortcomings of my paintings.

"Clearing Up Revised"  8x8 by M Francis McCarthy

One of the major insights I gained from my of my leap in understanding painting, was realizing that I can change anything I see that rings as false or that fails to create unity in my work, at any time and to whatever degree is necessary to bring the painting into a harmonious and unified state. Regardless of time already spent on the painting or it's fealty to to source material.

A painting must be a painting not just a reproduction of a scene in nature or referenced from a photo.

"Clearing Up"  8x8 by M Francis McCarthy

Todays image " Clearing up" was revised considerably by me just recently. 

I'm showing the previous version here below and the revised version at the top. I have used this image before on my blog and also had it up in a gallery here in New Zealand. 

The previous version isn't really that bad but there were things that bothered me like the tree trunk in the foreground and the mass of trees to the left felt too solid. Also, I liked the atmosphere of the sky but the strong diagonals there bothered me.

So, given these misgivings, why did I proudly display the image here and in a gallery?

I did it because I felt at the time I'd "finished" the piece that there was nothing else I could do to it. The reasons for this attitude are too extensive for the blog format. Suffice it to say I'm a believer in finishing things and then moving on.

This leads onto todays topic More Light, More Dark, More Color.

I have this statement taped to the easel in my studio. It is one of two mottos taped there. The other will be explored in another blog post later.

More Light, More Dark, More Color means that a painting can be dark even very dark and succeed as long as there is strong light as well. In fact there must be one to have the other and I want those strong contrasts in my work as they create stronger feeling in the painting.

More color means just that. I'm not afraid to ramp those colors up to extreme levels of saturation if necessary.  No longer will I hold back that aspect in my work, for the same reason as kicking up the lights and darks. More color combined with stronger darks and brighter lights equals even more feeling and emotive content.

Here's what I did to "Clearing Up":

• Painted another foreground tree to cover that annoying trunk from the previous version. 
• Created a sloping arc for the foreground hill, softening the previous slashing diagonal there. 
• Established  the horizon more clearly with less clutter. 
• In the sky I went with a strong twilight coloration.  
• Broke up the strong diagonals there and introduced more contrast.

In the lower left portion of the painting

• I placed a brook that followed the same compositional diagonal that was in the previous version . 
• Opened up the distant field and simplified it also amping up the color to a golden grass color. 
• The clump of trees on the left I made smaller. 
• Softened the harsh edges against the sky for all the trees breaking the horizon line.

Note: I used a revised painting of the original 5x5 oil sketch as an aid in repainting the larger 8x8. I did not refer to any photo reference. I'm learning more and more that working in this way creates far more depth in my paintings as well as creatinbg a sort of magical quality that I'm very happy with.

Cheers,

Landscape Painting - Narrative

It's autumn here in New Zealand. Getting colder and darker everyday now. 

I'm still getting used to the season flip from the US and the fact that theres not going to be a halloween in two weeks.

Today I want to chat about "narrative" in art. I am not an expert on art terms or art history being self taught. So my ideas about narrative may be different from the orthodox view. To define the term narrative as it relates to landscape painting, I mean, contextualized artifacts that create stories.

I avoid narrative in my painting. That means I do not put people in my landscapes or even things like houses, fences, fence posts, cows, sheep etc.

My Studio "just painted" area

I've no issue with artists that use these elements in their work. In fact I know first hand that they're handy for solving many compositional problems. For me, those benefits are outweighed by the attention these focal points draw and more importantly the narrative that is generated when they are present.

For example, if I paint a young girl with a basket into a scene of a field. Many questions about her and her situation are created. Where is she going? Is she happy? What's in the basket? Do her parent's own the field? 

Or if I paint an old barn in that field, you could ask, who works there? Is there anybody in that barn now? When was the last time anyone used that barn and so on.

On the other hand if I just paint a field with some trees and maybe a brook and an interesting sky. I've created a space that can be filled by the viewer of the painting without creating context. There is nothing between them and the emotive space that I've created for them to occupy. They are free to expand their consciousness into it and in so doing, relax and feel good.

Thats my goal and intention as a landscape painter if the truth be told. 

I wish for the viewers of my paintings to feel good but thats just the beginning of what I'm after. As they go deeper into the painting they might begin to wonder why we are all alive anyway and why is life so beautiful? 

Or they could begin to experience that feeling of stillness one has at that moment after the sun's just passed over the horizon and you find yourself deep in the seeming timelessness of the gloaming. A space between light and darkness and between life and death.

I should mention that my idol

George Inness

often painted figures into his works. Not only was he able to do this without the sort of repercussions I've mentioned, but his best painting easily achieve all the things that I wish for my paintings to do as well. 

All I can say is that Inness was a genius and that the rest of us must just do the best we can.

Cheers,

A bit about todays picture. This was taken today with my iphone at my studio in the

Quarry Arts Center Whangarei

, New Zealand

. The area of my studio pictured is to the right of where I paint and I set things there to dry and also keep recent things there to look at. 

Looking at one's work is nearly as important as painting it. I generally feel close to the work I've just painted. The word "enamored" comes to mind. 

However, more and more thats been replaced with a more critical mindset.

 I'm determined now more than ever to push each painting to the limit of what I can accomplish at this time. That means, more color, more contrast, more light, more darkness and no muddy half hearted scenes will be tolerated.

Landscape Painting - Revisions 2

Keeping up with our recent theme of revising art today.

I've been writing a lot about this topic. One reason is that I feel it's vital information. Painting actually requires less technical knowledge than you would think. The truth is that "seeing itself" is the real thing with painting.

After a period of study it's fairly simple to apply paint to the canvas in the desired colors and areas. The real challenge is in what we putting on the canvas. If we cannot see it first in either nature, a photo or in our minds eye, it will be nearly impossible to paint a great picture.

"Autumn Twilight" Final  (8x10) by M Francis McCarthy

Onto today's painting "Autumn Twilight". I had a bad feeling about this one from the get go. Still, I believed that I could power through my inner misgivings and do something cool. 

Well I tried, and failed horribly. So much so that I had this painting turned to the wall in my studio for awhile. I'm going to cover what exactly was wrong with it as I tell you what I did to revise the painting below. 

First let me say that main thing wrong was my reference photo. Though I had adjusted it quite a lot in Photoshop. I had not really noticed the huge composition issues inherent in the scene itself.  

BTW my subconscious did see those problems and tried to signal me through intuition that something was wrong, many times.  As you can see below, I ignored my intuition and payed for it dearly.

"Autumn Twilight" Previous Version  (8x10) by M Francis McCarthy

The revised version is at the top of this post. It would have made sense to post the early version first and the correct down here but I could not bear to have it leading off a post so please just scroll up to check out what I've done.

Here's what I did:

• Closed off the left side so there was a clear focal area. As is the picture had a sort of two face composition, with each side of the painting fighting for the viewers attention. This was the biggest issue with the painting by far.
• Created a better sky that "payed" off. I've written before about payoff sky's here. Funny enough, I thought I'd set up a good sky but it suffers from "tube syndrome" and was not working at all.
• Reshaped and reformed the trees. I also lightened them where they meet the sky. The darkness against the light was too intense and this is something that is very common in photographs that made it into this painting.
• Lightened the grasses below the trees creating more interest there.
• Darkened the lower right hand corner. I'm still a vignette fan. I did it here to help steer the eye towards the main  focal point (the field behind the trees).
• Lightened the area where the background foliage/hills meet the sky. This creates more atmosphere and also lessons the harshness of that distant edge.

That's about it. This was the second surgery I did on a recent painting and it payed off hugely. I'm really happy with the painting now. It's not perfect but it does have a nice feeling to it that I think rewards the viewer, whereas before there was only an almost good painting.

I'm going to be doing more posts along this line coming up. 

I'm hopeful that seeing my struggles will help you to overcome obstacles to doing better paintings that you may be having. 

Landscape painting is not easy to do well even for an experienced illustrator like myself but its great fun and a challenge that is welcome.

Cheers,

Reworking

Lately I've been reworking a lot of paintings. Not my favorite way of working but as an artist I must follow my muse.

It's tempting to let something go that you can see flaws in. 

Tempting yes, but ultimately it works against us as artists as it dilutes the over all quality of our oeuvre. 

Why that matters is different to each of us. It does matter to me. I want my best stuff here representing myself and my work after I've exited this mortal coil. I don't want a bunch of also ran paintings sorted through the mix

Gorilla by M Francis McCarthy

A while back I found that I could produce more good paintings by planning things out before painting. 

That did indeed work for quite a while. However, there are limits to what planning can achieve. Especially when working in the studio from photos and drawings.

I've written about some of the pitfalls inherent in working from photographs here. 

Even knowing what I do about all the pitfalls I've gotten zapped on about a dozen or so recent works.

As a consequence most need reworking to be brought up to the level I think they should be as landscape paintings. I've been reworking paintings for the last few weeks now and to a good effect in most cases.

Generally I've avoided reworking paintings in the past for a few reasons:

• Picking at paintings is a recipe for disaster and is too easy to do if you don't leave your work alone.
• Nothing is ever perfect. It's good realize this and let things be.
• Gotta keep moving. Better to produce many paintings, than spend too much time picking and scratching at a few.

I've recently hit a new plateau as a painter and because of that I'm "seeing" things I id not before. Since the paintings are recent and not in galleries or on display anywhere I'm free to try and bring them up to the level of my current vision. That's a good reason to repaint in my view.

I share this part of my painting journey in the hopes that it will help some of you that have also reached similar plateaus in your work.

Cheers,

A bit about "Gorilla" He is inked using pen and ink and also the computer. Many times I would print out photos and work directly on the image with pen or brush. Then scan in and finish the image. 

I was always short on time at Jack Nightingale Artworks and this was one of my many coping strategies. Gorilla came out pretty well but using photos like this can be a seductive potential trap even for experienced illustrators. You have been warned...

Intuition vs Intellect

Intellect battles intuition and always wins unless you keep on your toes.

It's too easy to drown out that quiet inner voice. Too easy to think we know what we're doing even if what we're doing is at cross purposes with our true intentions as artists.

I've written before about intuition here.

There is a reason that intuitive types are compelled by the arts. All art requires almost countless decisions to be made. The intellect alone finds this process tiring while our subconscious mind can do the same work automatically and effortlessly.

" Halfdome" by M Francis McCarthy

Both aspects of our mind are required to do art. The intuition must have a direction and intention to work it's magic upon. And it is magical as it can solve mountains of problems in a single bound and get us to the answers we need.

My Studio at The Quarry Arts Center in Whangarei, New Zealand Also pictured is Denny the Poodle, My cohort at arms.

"I'm convinced already! What can I do to tap into this intuition more?" you're saying.

Great question, you'll excuse me while I break out the bullets.

To access our intuitions more fully we can:

• Do that thing we just thought of doing. Don't put it off, act now.
• Take a stab with the brush loaded, at a spot on the painting that's bothering you. Then, deal with it...
• Don't lie to yourself when you see something wrong in your work. Intuition is always trying to point out those bad areas. BTW my personal tendency is to drown this voice out with lots of justifications.
• Pick up that book, find that bit of reference or ask that person to pose that you've been thinking about.
• Look for coincidence. 
• Welcome the random into your work.
• Paint once, think twice.
• Use the biggest brush possible and turn that thing. Make it work.

You get the idea.

Cheers,

About today's illustration "Half-dome" this was done back in 2003 or so and was used as the basis for quite a few tee shirt designs. It was inked with a dip type pen and then scanned in and finished using a Wacom Tablet and Stylus. This Sucker is copyrighted by Jack Nightingale Artworks and reproduced here for portfolio, editorial and illustrative purposes only.

Landscape Painting - Don't Over Paint

Here is one I have to tell myself all the time.

Don't over paint.

I like to plan out my paintings. I take pictures, do drawings and paint a small color sketch.

Then I project my drawing up onto my board and trace it with charcoal. After that I finish that drawing with a brush and sienna and black. This functions as my under painting.

The process is the same for the 5x7's and their larger brothers. One difference between them is that I draw the scene with charcoal directly unto the 5x7 board while I project unto the larger. Also I do only one color layer on the 5x7's and up to three or more on the large version of the painting.

Day's End (9x12) by M Francis McCarthy

Once in a while. I like my 5x7's better than their larger brothers. I enjoy their simpler forms and open brushwork  

I sometimes have a tendency going back to my earliest drawing days, to over render forms and over delineate the details. I call this activity being "the robot". I'm a better painter than a robot so I watch for it.

Day's End (5x7) by M Francis McCarthy

We all have our crosses to bear as individual artists.

How do I address mine? 

The only way I know how, by painting a lot and looking, painting and criticizing. Always trying for better. 

I also study the work of artists I admire and try to absorb some of their practice into mine where it's relevant and possible.

Every artist has their own way to their unique vision. 

Sometimes it's good to strike a balance between what you know and what you should know. Question your assumptions a bit once in awhile. If you were right about everything you though was good in your art, all the time... 

Wouldn't it be better?

Cheers,

Landscape Painting - Subjects

I was out driving about Northland New Zealand yesterday. Pretty easy to do as that's where I live and work. New Zealand is full of great trees and rural scenery. Lots of scenes that are paintable out here.

Twilight Meadow by M Francis McCarthy

Driving about with my wife I saw many great scenes and I like to stop and take photos of the ones that I think would make good motifs for paintings.

One thing I appreciate more and more is realizing that my intuition will always lead me to a great scene and also tells me that a scene just won't work. 

I can easily extrapolate my intuitions guidance if I need to. Its not magic. It's built out of observation, experience and gut feeling all together. The more you paint the more you should know what it is that works for you as an artist.

First New Zealand Studio

We've talked in the past about subject matter. 

An amateur artist should draw and paint absolutely everything that interests them while learning their craft. Conversely in the fine art world it's best for an artist to paint one type of subject. 

There are many obvious exceptions to this rule but in my many years in the art business I've noticed that the artists that painted one type of subject matter in one style did better than those who floated about.

The reason for this is that galleries and the art market in general need a way to market an artist. If your doing florals  figures, cityscapes, landscapes and seascapes in 10 different styles. It's going to be hard to carve any groove into to consciousness of the art market.

I choose landscape painting as my specialty because I felt that I could convey the types of feelings and evoke the kinds of emotions with my art that I find desirable. Also, I find landscape painting infinitely challenging and I'm prepared to do it till I die or am unable to lift my brush.

If you're a student, explore, explore, explore. But think about what I've said and about what type of subject matter resonates most with you. At some point in your artistic journey you will find the right thing to explore more fully.

Cheers...

Landscape Painting - Let it Be

Just a brief post today. I've been working on my site and I've finally worked out a gallery/slideshow solution that I like.

One thing that separates the professional artist from his amateur fellows is knowing when the piece they're working on is finished. The amateur often holds a mistaken belief that more time spent on a painting equals a better painting. 

Nothing could be father from the truth. In actual fact even the professional artist can work on a piece past the point where it was well done.

Dawns Glow by M Francis McCarthy

So, what can we do about over working our art? 

My advice: "Let it Be" three simple words that can save you. While working I feel it's best to try and accomplish whatever is happening on the canvas/board in as few steps as possible. Just tell your self to let the art be. Let it breathe.

"When do I stop though" you say? 

There is a still, quiet voice that tries to tell you when to stop. I call it intuition. We are going to talk a lot more about intuition later but for now I'll say, "intuition can guide you step by step if you listen to it". 

Like any other skill it must be learned though. As you practice listening and acting in accordance with your intuition it becomes stronger and stronger. 

Be aware that it is very easy to drown out this subtle guidance. There's nothing forceful about how intuition communicates. Though it speaks in a whisper it has the power of a hurricane.

Cheers

Landscape Painting - Work Small, at First

Lagging a bit on posting, I know. But, I do have an excuse. I've been working on my website and I'm sorting out some really nice portfolio pages. Still a work in progress but you're welcome to check em out if you like.

In addition to that I've been organizing many years worth of photos of paintings and other assorted tidbits, some of which will make it here on to my blog.

It's been my goal for awhile now to have an image archived on my site of every sold and unsold work that I've painted.

The California years are up now and I'm working on three New Zealand image galleries as well. Eventually, I will have all my years worth of drawings up too.

Summer Reflections (6x9) by M Francis McCarthy

Behind the art department in Campbell where I worked there are these awesome percolation ponds and also Los Gatos Creek. 

I found many views there that inspired me and I did over thirty five or so paintings referenced from that area. "Summer reflections" is one of these. I'm still quite pleased with it and who knows, I may paint the theme again some time.

Now, my painting tip for today. If you're learning painting, work small. Two good reasons are: You'll have a lot more experience of painting different scenes in a far shorter period of time than if you do larger work and also, you'll also have far more paintings to keep, sell or give away. 

The upside of having more paintings is that more of them are bound to be good. As far as the bad ones go, destroy them. Do it for yourself and also so the rest of us don't have to look at your crappy bad paintings either.

I've known far too many aspiring artists that spent all their time slogging on some large crappy paintings that they became invested in and thus felt obligated to keep around. 

Working small means at least you can stick the bad ones in a drawer until you are able to release them to the trash can. Or, better yet burn em. So no one picks them out of the trash and hangs them up on their wall (not kidding, has happened to me).

I will say there's a downside to starting small that I personally found to be an issue. Only working small, can make painting larger a bit of a strain at first. I found it a bit of a strain at least. These days, I've no issues working up to 12x18. I'm going to be doing a 18x24 in a month or so and I expect that to go fine.

BTW, using bigger brushes for larger paintings is a good idea and makes transitioning from painting small sizes to larger much easier. 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.