Day Eighty Two: Evening by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 82 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is Evening by John Francis Murphy.
Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will be well aware of Francis Murphy by now. We've done many studies of some of his best paintings. In today's video narration I will be discussing some biographical information about John Francis Murphy from the book a History of American Tonalism by David Cleveland so check that out.
We've been talking for the last week about my progression as an artist into becoming a landscape painter and about my earliest days of painting. We're going to continue on with that discussion today. I was working along in my sort of Impressionist style quite happily in those early days. I had discovered painting on wood panels as opposed to canvas and I was also experimenting with different types of painting mediums.
One of the mediums that I tried early on was Galkyd by Gamblin. This medium is quite a bit thinner than Liquin and also produced a glossier finish. I am not a fan of the glossy finish, also there were a few paintings I did with this medium where upon close inspection there were tiny bubbles in my painting. Definitely not an effect size I found desirable. Others, I guess, have better results with Galkyd .
I eventually settled on using Liquin as my primary medium. These days I use a medium made by Archival called Odorless Lean. I'm not sure if this medium is available in the US or not as it is made in Australia. This is a very liquid type of medium that gives me good paint movement and is also very fast drying period, it also has the big advantage of being far cheaper than Liquin.
While I was in the process of doing all these early paintings I was researching books and also online. There is a site called Wet Canvas. They have a forum with a good range of artists there from absolute amateurs to those with a lot of experience. I did learn some things from reading their forum. I was surprised to seet how involved people were with their materials especially their painting mediums.
A lot of amateur artists believe that the right materials are somehow magically going to help them create professional quality work. While it's true that using crappy paint or shoddy mediums on inferior substrates will make it a struggle to create a good painting, it is still possible. The opposite is not true however, you can have the most expensive paint, the finest mediums and be working on the priciest linen is still produce terrible amateurish work. As with anything else difficult to accomplish the way to improve your painting is to create a lot of paintings. There is no real shortcuts.
Tomorrow I'm going to talk a bit about my transition from a semi Impressionist into a Tonalist painter so stay tuned for that.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Evening by John Francis Murphy; this painting is a great example of Tonalism in its purest form. There are many different paintings that can fit into the category of Tonalism but I would put this particular work right in the center of that range.
I really enjoyed doing this study. As I have enjoyed doing studies of all of the John Francis Murphy paintings in this series. Of all the painters that we have covered in the series I would have to say that I resonate the most as an artist with John Francis Murphy.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Painted after - Evening by John Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will be well aware of Francis Murphy by now. We've done many studies of some of his best paintings. In today's video narration I will be discussing some biographical information about John Francis Murphy from the book a History of American Tonalism by David Cleveland so check that out.
We've been talking for the last week about my progression as an artist into becoming a landscape painter and about my earliest days of painting. We're going to continue on with that discussion today. I was working along in my sort of Impressionist style quite happily in those early days. I had discovered painting on wood panels as opposed to canvas and I was also experimenting with different types of painting mediums.
One of the mediums that I tried early on was Galkyd by Gamblin. This medium is quite a bit thinner than Liquin and also produced a glossier finish. I am not a fan of the glossy finish, also there were a few paintings I did with this medium where upon close inspection there were tiny bubbles in my painting. Definitely not an effect size I found desirable. Others, I guess, have better results with Galkyd .
I eventually settled on using Liquin as my primary medium. These days I use a medium made by Archival called Odorless Lean. I'm not sure if this medium is available in the US or not as it is made in Australia. This is a very liquid type of medium that gives me good paint movement and is also very fast drying period, it also has the big advantage of being far cheaper than Liquin.
While I was in the process of doing all these early paintings I was researching books and also online. There is a site called Wet Canvas. They have a forum with a good range of artists there from absolute amateurs to those with a lot of experience. I did learn some things from reading their forum. I was surprised to seet how involved people were with their materials especially their painting mediums.
A lot of amateur artists believe that the right materials are somehow magically going to help them create professional quality work. While it's true that using crappy paint or shoddy mediums on inferior substrates will make it a struggle to create a good painting, it is still possible. The opposite is not true however, you can have the most expensive paint, the finest mediums and be working on the priciest linen is still produce terrible amateurish work. As with anything else difficult to accomplish the way to improve your painting is to create a lot of paintings. There is no real shortcuts.
Tomorrow I'm going to talk a bit about my transition from a semi Impressionist into a Tonalist painter so stay tuned for that.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Evening by John Francis Murphy; this painting is a great example of Tonalism in its purest form. There are many different paintings that can fit into the category of Tonalism but I would put this particular work right in the center of that range.
I really enjoyed doing this study. As I have enjoyed doing studies of all of the John Francis Murphy paintings in this series. Of all the painters that we have covered in the series I would have to say that I resonate the most as an artist with John Francis Murphy.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Evening by John Francis Murphy |