Day Forty One: Autumn Sunset by John Enneking
Hello and welcome to day 41 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is of Autumn Sunset by John Enneking.
John Enneking Born 1841 Died 1916 was an amazing artist, generally considered to be an Impressionist but much of his work falls into the Tonalist ethos. He is fairly well known today I'm linking here to Artsy if you want to see more of his work. Another musical video today. My wifes contracted the same lurgy that got me and I'm not going to wake her with my narration. Instead please enjoy another track from my album "All is One".
In keeping with our ongoing discussion of some of the defining aspects of Tonalist painting, I'd like to discuss dry brushing today. While dry brushing is not strictly Tonalist in nature it was used quite alot in Tonalist paintings. This really leads to a brief aside on two modes of painting: Direct or Alla Prima and Indirect painting.
Alla Prima refers to the idea that the entire painting is done wet into wet generally all in one painting session. There is usually no preliminary drawing done and the painter will often build up their painting from thin turp washes at the beginning through to thicker paint at the end. Many if not all Impressionists favored this approach as well as painters like Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Also Alla Prima lends itself well to working outdoors (en Plein Air).
In contrast, the indirect approach (most used by Tonalists) is usually done in the studio. This is my favored approach but there are many different ways of painting indirectly. For the sake of brevity I'll just outline my approach:
This gets us back to my original topic of dry brushing. Dry brushing as a technique goes way back into the dim beginnings of painting. Basically it is the application of small amounts of pigment lightly worked over the existing painting. Often the side of a relatively clean brush is used to apply the paint.
I like dry brushing because it adds texture and interest to my paintings. It can however be overdone so I try to use the technique strategically and sparingly. To me it goes hand in hand with glazing (which we talked about yesterday). It's a great way to add richness to a scene and I find my self employing it more and more in my own work.
Btw I'd say I only used dry brushing and or glazing on about half the studies in this series. After my drawing and first collr passes I evaluated each study carefully to se if it needed that extra push.I felt that about half of the studies did. That ended up adding an addition month to the time it took to execute the series but in the end I feel it was worth it.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Autumn Sunset by John Enneking, This is a really interesting painting by Enneking and I really wanted to use it for this series. Enneking is one of my big inspirations for doing small studies in the first place. Several years ago I came across one of his studies and was really impressed with the vibrant color and fractured brush work.
What interested me most about this image was the maroon trees and the idiosyncratic composition. Unfortunately as you can see below the reference image had a lot of glare on it which I did my best to paint around.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Autumn Sunset by John Enneking, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Today's study is of Autumn Sunset by John Enneking.
John Enneking Born 1841 Died 1916 was an amazing artist, generally considered to be an Impressionist but much of his work falls into the Tonalist ethos. He is fairly well known today I'm linking here to Artsy if you want to see more of his work. Another musical video today. My wifes contracted the same lurgy that got me and I'm not going to wake her with my narration. Instead please enjoy another track from my album "All is One".
In keeping with our ongoing discussion of some of the defining aspects of Tonalist painting, I'd like to discuss dry brushing today. While dry brushing is not strictly Tonalist in nature it was used quite alot in Tonalist paintings. This really leads to a brief aside on two modes of painting: Direct or Alla Prima and Indirect painting.
Alla Prima refers to the idea that the entire painting is done wet into wet generally all in one painting session. There is usually no preliminary drawing done and the painter will often build up their painting from thin turp washes at the beginning through to thicker paint at the end. Many if not all Impressionists favored this approach as well as painters like Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Also Alla Prima lends itself well to working outdoors (en Plein Air).
In contrast, the indirect approach (most used by Tonalists) is usually done in the studio. This is my favored approach but there are many different ways of painting indirectly. For the sake of brevity I'll just outline my approach:
- Tone and texture a wood panel.
- Do a mass drawing of the subject that outlines the major forms and values.
- First color pass, block in the major forms and colors (in my case I try to do most of the painting here)
- Glaze some areas of the apinting with appropriate pigments.
- Second color pass, add some detail and modify or correct as necessary.
- As part o0f the second color pass, drybrush to enhance textures and soften forms..
This gets us back to my original topic of dry brushing. Dry brushing as a technique goes way back into the dim beginnings of painting. Basically it is the application of small amounts of pigment lightly worked over the existing painting. Often the side of a relatively clean brush is used to apply the paint.
I like dry brushing because it adds texture and interest to my paintings. It can however be overdone so I try to use the technique strategically and sparingly. To me it goes hand in hand with glazing (which we talked about yesterday). It's a great way to add richness to a scene and I find my self employing it more and more in my own work.
Btw I'd say I only used dry brushing and or glazing on about half the studies in this series. After my drawing and first collr passes I evaluated each study carefully to se if it needed that extra push.I felt that about half of the studies did. That ended up adding an addition month to the time it took to execute the series but in the end I feel it was worth it.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Autumn Sunset by John Enneking, This is a really interesting painting by Enneking and I really wanted to use it for this series. Enneking is one of my big inspirations for doing small studies in the first place. Several years ago I came across one of his studies and was really impressed with the vibrant color and fractured brush work.
What interested me most about this image was the maroon trees and the idiosyncratic composition. Unfortunately as you can see below the reference image had a lot of glare on it which I did my best to paint around.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Autumn Sunset by John Enneking |