Day Eighty Six: Autumn Gold by George Inness
Hello and welcome to day 86 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is 'Autumn Gold' by George Inness.
We've done quite a lot of studies after Inness paintings on this blog and we have several more to go. I will be reading from the book George Inness by Nicolai Cikovsky on today's video narration, so please check that out.
Over the last week or so, we've been talking about my history as a landscape painter and some of the challenges I've run into in my pursuit of a more Tonalist approach. Today I'd like to talk a bit more about texture and surface quality. This is a subject I've broached a few times in this blog, but I thought it would be good to expand a little bit more on it since this is one of the things that I wrangled with as I was trying to get my painting into a more Tonalist framework.
I began initially doing paintings on canvas and then I progressed to working on different types of wood. I really like having a bit of wood grain coming through and interacting with the texture of the brushstrokes. But I was also intrigued by the idea of working on a more heavily textured surface.
My initial experiments were with regular white acrylic gesso. I tried applying this in many different ways. I tried a sort of spackle approach, I also tried putting a bunch of gesso on the board and then just pushing it against a flat surface like a table and then pulling up. I did several paintings with these heavily textured boards.
There was a problem with the white gesso in that if I had to pick at the painting in any way I would be rewarded with a white spot. At one point I attempted mixing in an under color with the white gesso but the effect was too pastel for me.
I sort of liked the paintings with the texture but in some cases I found it to be too distracting. I really hadn't arrived at the proper textural approach, and so sometime around when I moved to New Zealand I decided to abandon texturising my boards. This was about the same time that I decided to work in a larger size of 8x12. At that time, I was not doing studies for the larger versions of my paintings I was just doing the 8x12 paintings.
The way I was approaching the surface of the boards was to apply several coats of transparent acrylic sanding sealer with a tint of burnt sienna added to it. This worked okay but I was challenged with some of my earliest attempts in that the brush that I used to apply the sealer would leave long stroke marks on my board that could be seen in the final painting.
I eventually found a way to apply the tinted sanding sealer so that the wood panel was completely smooth leaving only the subtle texture of the wood grain coming up through the painting. I worked like this for a good while. Until one day, I decided that it would be good to do a small study or small version of each motif that I was planning on painting. This is when I decided to get back into texturising. I wanted the boards at the small sizes that I was working with to have some texture to help pull the paint off of the brush.
The technique that I eventually arrived at for applying texture was to use a transparent acrylic gesso with some burnt sienna acrylic paint added to it. I would apply this with the side of a big flat brush using a sort of smacking gesture. This technique works very well, especially if you go over the texture a few times with the side of a clean brush so that the texture is subtle and not too intense. This is the technique that I use now on all my boards both the studies and my larger paintings.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Autumn Gold'; this is a late middle period George Inness painting. I like the composition quite a lot and his use of the pond in the center is very effective. I enjoyed painting the warm golden tones and I am happy with the way my study turned out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Autumn Gold by George Inness, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
We've done quite a lot of studies after Inness paintings on this blog and we have several more to go. I will be reading from the book George Inness by Nicolai Cikovsky on today's video narration, so please check that out.
Over the last week or so, we've been talking about my history as a landscape painter and some of the challenges I've run into in my pursuit of a more Tonalist approach. Today I'd like to talk a bit more about texture and surface quality. This is a subject I've broached a few times in this blog, but I thought it would be good to expand a little bit more on it since this is one of the things that I wrangled with as I was trying to get my painting into a more Tonalist framework.
I began initially doing paintings on canvas and then I progressed to working on different types of wood. I really like having a bit of wood grain coming through and interacting with the texture of the brushstrokes. But I was also intrigued by the idea of working on a more heavily textured surface.
My initial experiments were with regular white acrylic gesso. I tried applying this in many different ways. I tried a sort of spackle approach, I also tried putting a bunch of gesso on the board and then just pushing it against a flat surface like a table and then pulling up. I did several paintings with these heavily textured boards.
There was a problem with the white gesso in that if I had to pick at the painting in any way I would be rewarded with a white spot. At one point I attempted mixing in an under color with the white gesso but the effect was too pastel for me.
I sort of liked the paintings with the texture but in some cases I found it to be too distracting. I really hadn't arrived at the proper textural approach, and so sometime around when I moved to New Zealand I decided to abandon texturising my boards. This was about the same time that I decided to work in a larger size of 8x12. At that time, I was not doing studies for the larger versions of my paintings I was just doing the 8x12 paintings.
The way I was approaching the surface of the boards was to apply several coats of transparent acrylic sanding sealer with a tint of burnt sienna added to it. This worked okay but I was challenged with some of my earliest attempts in that the brush that I used to apply the sealer would leave long stroke marks on my board that could be seen in the final painting.
I eventually found a way to apply the tinted sanding sealer so that the wood panel was completely smooth leaving only the subtle texture of the wood grain coming up through the painting. I worked like this for a good while. Until one day, I decided that it would be good to do a small study or small version of each motif that I was planning on painting. This is when I decided to get back into texturising. I wanted the boards at the small sizes that I was working with to have some texture to help pull the paint off of the brush.
The technique that I eventually arrived at for applying texture was to use a transparent acrylic gesso with some burnt sienna acrylic paint added to it. I would apply this with the side of a big flat brush using a sort of smacking gesture. This technique works very well, especially if you go over the texture a few times with the side of a clean brush so that the texture is subtle and not too intense. This is the technique that I use now on all my boards both the studies and my larger paintings.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Autumn Gold'; this is a late middle period George Inness painting. I like the composition quite a lot and his use of the pond in the center is very effective. I enjoyed painting the warm golden tones and I am happy with the way my study turned out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Autumn Gold by George Inness |