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 Painting - Liquin

I love Liquin. There I said it. 

This is from the Windsor Newton site: 

Liquin is a general purpose semi gloss medium which speeds drying, improves flow and reduces brush stroke retention. It halves the drying time of conventional oil color (touch dry in 1-6 days depending on color & film thickness) and resists yellowing.

Dawn Breaks (8x12) by M Francis McCarthy

Liquin cuts your drying time way, way down and if you use lead white (as I do) paintings are dry to the touch the next day if painted thinly. I usually dunk my brush in it before dipping into any colors. I also periodically add it to my mixes as I'm painting.

I've used straight up linseed oil as a medium in the past and it's slow drying. Many artists use quick drying mediums like sun thickened walnut oil or Gamblin Galkyd medium. I've tried the Galkyd and found it too glossy for my taste. 

I love the satin finish of Liquin and after I discovered it I never looked back.

Many oil painters like to get into medium composition debates like it somehow enhances one's talent. A good artist can create good work with the barest minimum of materials. I utilize Liquin in my painting to the fullest extent possible and I'd miss is badly if I had to make do without it.

BTW Liquin isn't cheap but it's worth the cost. Don't buy more than you think you'll use in a six month period. It has a limited shelf life. Also, they've now changed over to a nasty plastic bottle. I decant mine from a big bottle into the smaller original glass bottle and it's never far from my pallet.

Today's painting "Dawn Breaks" was painted soon after my move to New Zealand.. At the time I painted it I was feeling pretty challenged. I'd still not completely got my technique and materials to conform to my inner vision. 

Dawn Breaks was painted on a pine panel. I don't usually care for pine as a surface because it's too flat with not much grain. In this case, the board was textured with gesso before painting. 

I'd experimented with textured boards a lot while painting in California but ultimately I prefer to use textured boards only for my 5x7 oil sketches and hardwoods like Kauri for the larger pieces. I'm actually pretty fond of this painting now and it is housed in the M Francis McCarthy Foundation for the Arts permanent collection.

Landscape Painting - Brush Technique 2

Yesterday, I talked a bit about brush technique. Today I'd like to go a bit further. 

The brush is my preferred way of applying paint to my panels. I also use a pallet knife, but I use the pallet knife in a subtractive way. Mostly to scrape away surface dimples or sometimes to scratch away paint or even to blend passages.

Seldom do I apply paint directly with a knife. Many painters that I consider personal teachers such as Richard Schmid or Bob Rohm do paint with the knife. They both use it very well as do some other landscape painters out there.

Morning Glow by M Francis McCarthy

I guess my biggest issue with pallet knife painting is that it can so easily feel contrived. Students of painting should give it a try though as it can be perfected as a painting implement. It's best used in moderation should you care to use it at all. If you're older like me you will recall the awful overdone impasto paintings that we're so common in the sixties and seventies.

When you're painting you have a nearly infinite number of approaches to your brush handling. You can go with chiseled strokes that are long or short. Or, completely blend out all indication of separate marks.

I like to show a bit of the strokes but I also like my strokes to interweave like a lattice. Diffusion is always an important aspect of my paintings but diffusion that breaks into contrasting edges here and there.

Morning Glow Detail

Here's a detail of Morning Glow that illustrates what I mean. I aim for my brush work to be expressive while also getting the image across.  A good way to look at the brushwork in a painting is that it should look great from afar but also pay off for the viewer that gets up really close. I try to make my marks with character and sensitivity without being overly direct or contrived.

Another good tip I have for aspiring painters is to change-up how they are holding their brush. I like to use every angle of my brushes whether the edge, flat or especially the side. 

I apply paint fairly thinly building up my paint in layers of successive brush strokes. I try to always leave a bit of life in the painting. By that I mean I try not to choke out the layers that went before. I leave a bit of them showing.

When my paintings are most successful in my view they are articulated with an economy of strokes. Many times I will have to apply multiple layers of smaller strokes to a painting to get my desired vision across but it's magical when I can do it in one pass of color over my initial under-painting/drawing.

Landscape Painting - Brush Technique

Everything I write and teach on this blog is strictly my opinion. I hope that it is evident by the blog's title "M Francis McCarthy" but just for the record. Everything I write here is just my opinion. Other professional artists may have contradictory advice that works for them. I can only speak and teach from my own experience.

I'm no fan of precious, over detailed brush strokes in landscape paintings. There is a landscape painting show currently running in my town by a decent painter. While her color and composition are good, I feel she's only decent because of her tendency to use lots of tiny strokes made with a small round brush. This to me is a sure sign of a beginning or amateur painter.

A Welcome Friend by M Francis McCarthy

I was once guilty of making the same error but after constant reappraisal of the work I was doing I gradually ceased using those tiny brushes. I think it's far better to imply detail with glancing indicative strokes rather than try to impersonate a camera with a dinky little brush. Every stroke needs to have it's own beauty and also serve to build a whole image at the same time

This piece "A Welcome Friend  is a good example of my technique. There are many small strokes. In fact maybe more than I would have preferred. My approach to painting is to always use a slightly larger brush than is comfortable to execute a given passage. This is one way to combat tiny brush syndrome. 

Another way is to paint with your glasses off so you concentrate on the overall more than the specific. Note: if you have great vision you can semi close your eyes so that your vision becomes blurred and periodicity paint that way for the same result.

With a larger brush, the painter is forced to produce bolder, more painterly strokes. This is a good thing. The smallest brush I ever use even for my 5x7s is a #2 flat and more often than not I use that only for certain shadow passages. 

Brush technique is a vast topic and I'm going to touch on it again in a future post. For now though just remember to use the biggest brush you possibly can. Your work will benefit immensely, immediately.

Inspiration

I enjoy talking with the many artists that visit my studio at the Quarry Arts Center here in Whangarei. Today I was chatting with someone about Inspiration. Actually the topic of artist blocks came up but I prefer to couch this phenomenon in the positive context of Inspiration vs the negative attribute of "artists block".

There are many causes of artists block. Here's list off the top of my head:

• Not enough work being created
• Not enough time spent doing art
• Too much comparison with past work or the work of others
• Lack of desire to create art
• A bad attitude about one's art or abilities

There's probably a lot more causes I'm not thinking of but this list gets the ball rolling. I'd say the worst on the list is having a bad attitude. Without the proper attitude nothing of any consequence can occur.

California Hills (6x9) by M Francis McCarthy

Now lets start reworking the bad attitude by rewording "artists block" to "seeking inspiration". One simple change like that can completely re-frame the issue. There is a lot more positive changes that can and will eliminate any artists block.

Here's some great ways to find inspiration:

• Work more, talk less. Inspiration shows up for those who are working and avoids those who prefer talking about working or work they've done in the past.
• Pick a style and master it before moving on. This is all about focus which I'll talk more about in a future post.
• Emulate the work of artists you admire. By this I mean teach yourself whats good about their work that touches you as an artist. I am not saying that you should ever try to assume the style and working methods of another artist as your own. What I am saying is that the best way to learn how to do something is to try to recreate that which moves you.
• Give yourself a break. If you're truly working hard at your art, your stuff cannot stay bad for long. Hard work always pays off. Always. So don't be too self critical while you're developing as an artist. That's not to say you shouldn't be critical of your work. You should be creating enough of a flow of art that no one piece is all that important anyway.
• Destroy you worst work. You don't need it around if it sucks. If you are really working as hard as you should be, you'd have so much art sitting around that you won't mind getting rid of the crap.
• Do more pieces that take less time. If you have to, work smaller. Smaller works take less time generally speaking and this allows you to cover more ground while mastering your craft. 

I could keep going but that's enough to get you started.

A bit about today's painting California Hills. I painted this back in 2009. It's maybe my third or forth painting in a Tonalist vein. 

I was working on textured panels at the time and I still do my 5x7s oil sketches on textured boards. These days I prefer to do my final paintings on a regular wood surface. The type of wood does matter and I really like hard woods. Here in New Zealand I use kauri which has a nice tight even wood grain.

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.

Be Passionate

In my last post I mentioned that you should create beauty even if no one cares. This is the attitude that any artist worth his salt must have. 

Art is all about passion. Passion in regards to art is a decision that's made by the artist to fully engage with the imagination. Imagination is the energy that creates and sustains our personal and collective realities. 

Everyday we are immersed in the creative imagination of our fellow human beings in a mostly unconscious way. Passion allows us to also become a creator in this world, not just a spectator.

Evening Shadows by M Francis McCarthy

Passion is required to sustain any artist through the effort of attaining mastery. I heard a quote once that went "a plague on easy masterpieces" unfortunately I cannot locate the source but it's meaning has resonated with me my whole life. That which comes easy in not usually worth attaining.

To paint well for example requires years of study and practice. There is no easy way to do it other than just rolling up your sleeves and getting to work. I've heard another artist say that it was the equivalent of learning to play concert violin and I agree.

Without passion there is no way you could spend the time required to get good at anything. If you're following this blog and want to paint well, my advise is to get passionate, right now! Get those paints out and paint as much as you can whenever you can. results will come rapidly.

Today's picture Evenings Shadows was painted last year and can be viewed at the Yvonne Rust Gallery in the Quarry arts center, Whangarei.

Landscape Painting - Abstraction

I like abstract art. Not all of it, but a painting being abstract or not is not the thing that makes it good or bad in my view. I always look for a strong pattern of light, shadow and contrasts in all art.

It would be reasonable to ask why I do not paint abstracts now. I certainly have before in the digital realm. a place of strong contrasts and experimentation. 

However abstract art for me these days is more limiting. I know it would seem to be the opposite but abstract art for me too closely reflects my inner reality. Without an outside idea or aspect to work against or toward I feel my art gets stale.

Coming Storm (8x12) by M Francis McCarthy

That said I believe all art to be essentially abstract in nature. You really notice this in primitive art and cave paintings but abstraction is present in even the most photo realistic art. I like to hang my landscapes on a strong abstract foundation.

Twilight Cypress (sketch) by M Francis McCarthy

Here's the sketch for Twilight Cypress. There are slashes of strokes in the sky and I've defined the shape of the tree with strong graphic edges that reinforce my composition.

Twilight Cypress (9x12) by M Francis McCarthy

The final painting of Twilight Cypress is far softer than the sketch. The over all effect is realistic in that you tell it's a tree and a sky with some earth below. But the painting is still quite graphic in feel.

Another reason I paint Landscapes instead of abstracts is that I feel that the vehicle of landscape allows the viewer to ride into my paintings. They've no need to wait, stand there and ask what it is before getting on board. To their conscious mind the question of "what is it" has already been answered.

To the less conscious part of their mind however, abstractions and metaphors abound. Colors communicate feeling and composition directs and constrains the eyes towards it's own ends. This is far more interesting to me than abstraction outright.

Digital Landscape Paintings

In my mind I always imagined being a Landscape Painter. Even now I'm not sure why but much of it has to do with my approach to art in general. To me creating art has always been the thing. Subject matter could change but the drawing and painting remained the same

From 1995 to 2005 I was creating 98% of my art on a computer. At first for my own edification then as a way to make a living. I explored most of the nooks and crannies of the digital art making process and I had attained a high level of mastery with the medium.

Sometime in 2006/07 I started painting landscapes in the computer working directly over photos with my Wacom tablet and stylus. I had developed several techniques that I used for animal illustrations that I wanted to try on landscapes

Falls by M Francis McCarthy

This was based on a photo I took while at Yosemite. I was somewhat pleased with the result but the painting had a stationary quality that I had not yet realized was due to it's method of creation.

View of Grant Parkby M Francis McCarthy

One of my favorite attempts based on a very old digital photo I'd taken. I still like this but I feel the color doesn't move like it would in a real painting.

Forest Path by M Francis McCarthy

Another semi successful work. These three pieces represent the best efforts out of a good 15 paintings done inside my computer using Painter and Photoshop. At the time I was not as aware of the inherent limitations of photography and thus I feel all of these paintings have a quality of effected photographs even though I panted them stroke by stroke over my photo reference.

A few of the limitations and traps involved with directly painting on top of photos are as follows:

• Too much detail in the painting
• Composition issues in the photo are not resolved by in the painting
• Photos have a far more limited color range than most paintings require to be interesting
• You paint everything you see in the photo because it's so apparently there.

I could go on but those are some salient points to remember. Personally, I still use photographic reference but always mindful of these and many more subtle and even insidious traps. There is actually a lot of debate on this topic and many painters prefer to paint En plein air.

I've much to say about photography and it's use in conjunction with landscape painting. So I'll definitely be revisiting the topic in future posts.

Motifs and Repainting

Happy new year! Tonight I'm going to talk about motifs and revisiting them. Also, technique and it's progression in the attainment of an artists personal vision. 

Starting in 2010 I went far more tonal and indirect in my approach to oil painting. I was inspired by a trip I took with my wife to the De Young Museum. At the end of the American collection they had several large rooms dedicated to American landscape painting. 

I was especially intrigued by the work of George Inness but also Thomas Moran and Frederic Edwin Church. I loved the surfaces of these paintings and their soft glowing inner light. 

November Light (6x9) by M Francis McCarthy

This version of November Light was painted in July of 2010 and currently resides in the collection of a fan of my work. It was painted on a maple panel that I'd brought over from the states.

At that time I was painting only small pieces but putting full intention and finish into them. the inspiration for this painting came from my first trip to New Zealand in 2009 and it was one of the first I painted after moving here in 2010.

I really like this composition and how it features water and an interesting tree but I felt the sky was lacking movement and drama.

At the time I was fascinated with proportion and was only painting in 6x9. The 6x9 format's 3:2 aspect ratio is the most similar to the golden ratio. Proprortion is a topic that I'd like to get into further in a later post.

November Light (5x5 by M Francis McCarthy

This is my 5x5 reworking of November Light, painted in 2011. After painting a series of Four 8x8 paintings that were for a show at Hangar Gallery, I was becoming interested in the square format and decided that I'd like to repaint November Light as a 12x12.

It was at this time that I first started doing small oil studies prior to executing the larger pieces. I quite enjoy doing the small paintings and a nice side benefit is that it creates an affordable small painting for people that collect my work.

November Light (12x12)by M Francis McCarthy

Here is the finished painting as a 12x12. It feels different from either of the other two paintings and I'm quite happy with the result. What I like best about this piece is the expressive sky and brush technique that does the job with out being too finicky. 

I aspire to create each painting using as few brush strokes and successive layers as possible. That said, I'll keep painting until I get the scene across. I pick, jab, scratch and layer brush strokes, anything I have to do.

Landscape Painting - Color

More ruminations on landscape painting today, with a focus on color. I use a somewhat limited pallet as follows: Black, Cobalt Blue, Phthalo Blue, Dioxazine Purple, Viridian, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Transparent Earth Yellow, Yellow Ocher, Lemon Yellow (hue) and Lead White. I've also recently added Titanium White back into my Lead White for added body. I've arrived at this pallet through years of trying out different colors.

Pastureland (11x14) by M Francis McCarthy

It's important to limit your pallet as much as possible, doing so creates better harmony in the painting. Some of the colors on my pallet are special effect colors like the Violet and the Phthalo Blue. I can get by without these easily.

Others like Ivory Black are for knocking brightness off of a straight mix. Also black is great for making a warm rich green when mixed with yellow. When it comes to using black I almost never use it in an opaque manner. You must be careful with black as too much has a deadening effect. Also, it can be cool in an unforgiving way. I love black and would not want to be without it.

I work on a color principle of warm vs cool colors on my pallet. In the reds Alizarin Crimson is a cool red while I use Burnt Sienna as a warm red. I prefer sienna to any cad reds as I like it's earthy quality. It is made with clay and one of the ancient pigments. 

In the Blues: Cobalt is a warm blue and Phthalo Blue is cool. For the yellows: Yellow Ocher is warm and earthy while Lemon Yellow is cool and quite "green". Viridian I use mostly mixed with Alizarin to create my shadow/dark colors. I use it to modify greens and cut reds as well. As a green it is not really in most landscapes but it is vital as a modifier.

Pastureland (5x7) by M Francis McCarthy

The lead white vs titanium debate is well known to any serious student of oil painting. I love lead white but I must import it to use in my paintings here in New Zealand as it's not freely available here. 

Lead white is far more transparent than Titanium and warmer as well. I use lead white exclusively except for when I teach. Recently though I'm mixing a bit of Titanium in with my Lead white. This is helps to lighten my paintings a bit. Also, it is a very permanent and light-fast color so contributes to their longevity.

Pastureland (sketch) by M Francis McCarthy

The painting I featured today is called Pastureland. a very simple composition but pleasing in it's effect I think. Phthalo Blue features prominently in the sky here and I enjoyed pushing the color pretty far.

Landscape Painting - Idea

This blog is going to be the first in a random assemblage of posts that I'm calling Landscape Painting. I intend to show the progression of a piece and ramble a bit about the painting or some aspect of the painting or landscape painting in general.

Morning Hillside (8x8) by M Francis McCarthy

First off this painting is currently on display at Helena Bay Galley a beautiful gallery in a beautiful spot. The scene is very Northland New Zealand. That said it could also be anywhere, at least I try to imbue that quality into my work.

I am often asked in my studio at the Quarry Arts Center where a scene is. What place, country or region am I depicting? I often reply that the scene is imagined. As this is true to a large degree, though there may indeed be a specific place that inspired the painting.  

I am not trying to be coy. The real truth is that I have created a Painting and though I may have used photos or drawings done from a site I feel no obligation and have no desire to depict an actual place. The photos and drawings are a prelude to the point of the painting which IS the Painting not the scene itself or the process that birthed it.

Morning Hillside  (5x7) by M Francis McCarthy

That said I will sometimes say "Oh yeah, that's over there on Choctaw ridge" or something to that effect. Because to say all I have to say about that simple query will exhaust the patience of a causal apprehender.

  

What I'm more interested in is connecting the viewer with a created space that's acting as a window or portal. The space is empty so that it can be filled, by the viewer. There are traces sometimes of others. Like a road or a path but they're are no others here just the view and the viewer.

I also intend to relax the viewer I want them to be in a mellow state with the painting. I like to think of the painting as a refuge for the weary. A place to spread a blanket and chill out. But even more to be in nature even if it's nature of their own creation.

I guess there's lot's of philosophy in this post but philosophy "is" painting in many ways. Some of the greatest philosophers painted and visa versa .

Morning Hillside  (sketch) by M Francis McCarthy

This sketch was done with my Wacom tablet in Photoshop. For me these type of sketches are just about planes (dividing the space) and composition. I make few efforts to treat them as real drawings. I will often project this type of image onto my wood panel and do a lot more creative drawing there, adding shadows and mass to the landscape. I usually wait till that stage to flesh out the drawing just to keep the process fresh at each stage of the paintings evolution.

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

Pay off skies

 Monday here in New Zealand and another blog post.

This painting is called "Summer Storm" sized 8x10 and painted a few months ago.

I feel that every painting that I do should have what I call a "pay off sky". By that I mean the sky should contribute strongly to the emotion and impact of the painting, not just serve as a backdrop to the trees and other landscape elements.

I like lots of color in my skies as well and I've noticed that Hollywood does these days also. I've noted many movies that have almost exclusively used twilight light skies in their outdoor scenes. Movies like the Narnia Chronicles and Avengers come to mind but they're everywhere once you start paying attention.

One of the great, great things I love about New Zealand is the clean air and beautiful skies we have here. I never tire of looking up and noting the differentiated clouds and patterns of our southern skies.

Summer Storm                                                                 M Francis McCarthy

This painting is in the 8x10 format. Until recently I eschewed these proportions but I've since embraced 8x10, 11x14, 9x12 as well as square formats. I will definitely write a post in the future about the different proportions and their relative impact. For now I'll say that different proportions really change the feel of a scene. Below is my 5x7 sketch for "Summer Storm"

Summer Storm (Sketch)                                                       M Francis McCarthy

A different feel for sure and far more panoramic. But more goes on in the change that is quite mysterious. The space containing the scene is one of the most important elements of any scene. Like I said though, this a topic for another blog, another day.

Study vs Finished Painting

I like to do a color study prior to painting my final version of the image. The study below is painted at 5x5 inches. I tend to prep my board with a textured clear gesso stained sepia. I then sketch on the board in charcoal. After that I complete the sketch using burnt sienna and black. finally I go in with color painted in fairly quickly and directly..

Indian Summer (Study)                                                     M Francis McCarthy

Here is the same motif painted at 8x8 inches. Though the size is still quite small you can see the image is far more refined in every way. the method use is much like my studies however more time and care is payed to the initial drawing. Also, there are more layers of transparent color and more time and repeated sessions are applied to the piece shown below.

Indian Summer                                                                   M Francis McCarthy

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