Day Fifty One: Evening Star by Birge Harrison
Hello and welcome to day 51 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is 'Evening Star' by Birge Harrison.
Birge Harrison is a second-generation Tonalist and he also wrote a book about landscape painting that was quite popular and is still in print. I will be getting into some biographical information about Birge in today's video so please check that out.
In our ongoing assay regarding my painting process, today I would like to discuss substrates that I have used and currently use. These days I strongly prefer painting on wood. However, when I started out I was painting on canvas boards like the ones you can find in pretty much any art supply store.
My rationale when I first started teaching myself landscape painting was that I could learn a lot more if I did many small paintings as opposed to only a few large ones. The problem with small canvas panels is that the rough/coarse canvas texture tends to dominate the painting. For this reason I started looking into painting on other types of substrates. Originally I went to Home Depot and purchased a type of panel called Luan that is typically used for doors. The Luan is about 1/8 of an inch thick and can exhibit a fair amount of grain.
Originally I would paint directly onto the wood. After some research though I discovered that without some sort of buffering, the wood would eventually absorb all of the oil from the paint and thus the painting would gradually disappear over time. My solution to this early on was to use grey house paint to coat the boards prior to executing my paintings on them.
Eventually, I started exploring other types of panel and while still in the US I was painting on very nice maple panels that I had cut to a size of 6 x 9. I brought a few of those panels over to New Zealand with me when I came over. Once the New Zealand, I started exploring various different types of wood panels here, some of which were native timbers to New Zealand like Rimu or Kauri. After a while I settled on pine panels at a size of 8 x 12. And I worked on those panels for quite a while.
It was actually in New Zealand, or just prior that I started preparing the surface of my wood panels with a burnt sienna tone, something I can thank Birge Harrison for after having read his book. I have experimented with applying various textures, but for the most part I would just use an acrylic sanding sealer that was colored with burnt sienna, sanding the board in between applications. I like pine but find it a bit soft.
Eventually I settled on painting with kauri wood panels which I purchased from a local supplier. Kauri is a very fine-grained wood that is also reasonably hard. I really enjoyed the subtle grain coming through and interacting with my brushstrokes. Unfortunately the Kauri panels had a downside in that they would have a tendency to be somewhat warped. This is not a problem when the painting is in a frame but I'd prefer the board flatter while painting.
My current solution that addresses this is to use laminated MDF. I have experimented with painting directly on prepared MDF boards and I cannot say that I care for it very much, I do not like the overall slickness. I even tried textured MDF but ultimately found that unsatisfying as well. My current solution is to paint on MDF board that is been laminated with Kauri. This provides me with an excellent, very stable and minimally warped painting surface that also provides me with a nice grain.
Tomorrow we are going to discuss texturing a bit, how I apply it, and how I have utilized textured substrates in my work in the past and currently.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening Star' by Birge Harrison; although Birge has written a book that imparts a lot of information about Tonalist painting and how to go about it, he is not technically a Tonalist painter.
I've been aware of this particular painting for quite a while and I was intrigued by the almost completely abstract nature of the painting. I'm pretty happy with the final result.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Evening Star by Birge Harrison, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x5' Oil on wood panel |
Today study is 'Evening Star' by Birge Harrison.
Birge Harrison is a second-generation Tonalist and he also wrote a book about landscape painting that was quite popular and is still in print. I will be getting into some biographical information about Birge in today's video so please check that out.
In our ongoing assay regarding my painting process, today I would like to discuss substrates that I have used and currently use. These days I strongly prefer painting on wood. However, when I started out I was painting on canvas boards like the ones you can find in pretty much any art supply store.
My rationale when I first started teaching myself landscape painting was that I could learn a lot more if I did many small paintings as opposed to only a few large ones. The problem with small canvas panels is that the rough/coarse canvas texture tends to dominate the painting. For this reason I started looking into painting on other types of substrates. Originally I went to Home Depot and purchased a type of panel called Luan that is typically used for doors. The Luan is about 1/8 of an inch thick and can exhibit a fair amount of grain.
Originally I would paint directly onto the wood. After some research though I discovered that without some sort of buffering, the wood would eventually absorb all of the oil from the paint and thus the painting would gradually disappear over time. My solution to this early on was to use grey house paint to coat the boards prior to executing my paintings on them.
Eventually, I started exploring other types of panel and while still in the US I was painting on very nice maple panels that I had cut to a size of 6 x 9. I brought a few of those panels over to New Zealand with me when I came over. Once the New Zealand, I started exploring various different types of wood panels here, some of which were native timbers to New Zealand like Rimu or Kauri. After a while I settled on pine panels at a size of 8 x 12. And I worked on those panels for quite a while.
It was actually in New Zealand, or just prior that I started preparing the surface of my wood panels with a burnt sienna tone, something I can thank Birge Harrison for after having read his book. I have experimented with applying various textures, but for the most part I would just use an acrylic sanding sealer that was colored with burnt sienna, sanding the board in between applications. I like pine but find it a bit soft.
Eventually I settled on painting with kauri wood panels which I purchased from a local supplier. Kauri is a very fine-grained wood that is also reasonably hard. I really enjoyed the subtle grain coming through and interacting with my brushstrokes. Unfortunately the Kauri panels had a downside in that they would have a tendency to be somewhat warped. This is not a problem when the painting is in a frame but I'd prefer the board flatter while painting.
My current solution that addresses this is to use laminated MDF. I have experimented with painting directly on prepared MDF boards and I cannot say that I care for it very much, I do not like the overall slickness. I even tried textured MDF but ultimately found that unsatisfying as well. My current solution is to paint on MDF board that is been laminated with Kauri. This provides me with an excellent, very stable and minimally warped painting surface that also provides me with a nice grain.
Tomorrow we are going to discuss texturing a bit, how I apply it, and how I have utilized textured substrates in my work in the past and currently.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening Star' by Birge Harrison; although Birge has written a book that imparts a lot of information about Tonalist painting and how to go about it, he is not technically a Tonalist painter.
I've been aware of this particular painting for quite a while and I was intrigued by the almost completely abstract nature of the painting. I'm pretty happy with the final result.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Evening Star by Birge Harrison |