Day Seventy One: Summer Montclair by George Inness
Hello and welcome to day 71 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is of 'Summer Montclair' by George Inness.
A vertical Inness today. I have been reading from the book by Nikolai Cikovsky "George Inness" on the videos for our recent bunch of Inness studies. I will continue on with that today in the video narration, so please check that out.
I know, I said that we were going to jump into the second color pass today in our recent series of blog posts about my Tonalist painting process. However, it occurred to me that it would be good to take a little break from that and discuss the idea of looking at, living with and editing your own work.
I have touched on this concept of self editing before in this blog, but it is deserving of more attention. It's very easy to focus only on the positive 'actions' that one takes to create art. A bit like how it's easier to focus on the positive content of the picture (like a figure or a tree) as opposed to the negative space. For art to be good it must be in balance, and so good art is always the result of both action and inaction, thinking and feeling.
After I finished my first color pass I set it on a wall in my studio to my right. Against that wall I have two fairly large display easels. On those easels I like to place all of my recent paintings after I have completed a particular stage. This is an area where paintings dry but also a place where I can look at what I've done, think about it and continue the process of critical analysis that started with coming upon the scene in nature and, continues on through each of the stages of my process.
I find it important to put a frame on the painting in its intermediate stages. This creates a border that really helps me analyze the painting. I have known some painters that actually create their paintings in a frame (I might try it myself one day).
For the type of painting that I do, it's essential that the work also be presented in some sort of frame. I will discuss framing, it's importance and effect in a later blog post.
As I've mentioned previously on this blog, I tend to work on about 14 scenes at a time. I take each painting through all of my stages before completing any. This is a good number for me because it's not too many scenes but it is enough for there to be a reasonable span of time between the two color passes. This gives me a chance to look at the work in its first color state and really think about things that might be bothering me or ideas I may have as to ways that I could improve the picture.
I've tried in the past bringing one or two paintings to completion at a time but I feel I get more work done this way of a higher quality.
A phenomenon that I had noticed in my painting life is that I would complete a painting and put it on the wall. After a while when the newness of the painting wore off, I would slowly become aware of issues with the painting that needed to be resolved. This is not every painting I did, but definitely more than a few of them needed a bit of editing or reevaluation. Doing 14 scenes at a time gives me the opportunity to do that reevaluation while I'm still in the process of working on a given scene.
Not every painting that I do is going to be a masterwork, but there's no sense in having work out there in circulation that could be better or could have been improved. Fortunately I'm not a perfectionist and I'm quite happy to let things go after a certain point. Unlike my favorite painter George Inness. He was famous for reworking paintings and working over existing paintings that had been sold, even working over the paintings of his friends.
Tomorrow we will actually begin talking about the second color pass and I hope to give you some good information about my process in that regard so stay tuned.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Summer Montclair' by George Inness; this is a painting I have been aware of for quite a while and is one that comes up readily in an image search for Inness on Google. It wasn't actually until painting my study of this scene that I realized that the pond is shaped like a coffin.
This painting exhibits Inness' mastery of values and also edges. One thing he does in this painting that I generally try to avoid the is that he has a very odd tree shape in the middle ground trees. Also he has left a visual way out of the scene on the right-hand side as well as the left, which is working in this painting but is not something that I tend to do.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Summer Montclair by George Inness, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
A vertical Inness today. I have been reading from the book by Nikolai Cikovsky "George Inness" on the videos for our recent bunch of Inness studies. I will continue on with that today in the video narration, so please check that out.
I know, I said that we were going to jump into the second color pass today in our recent series of blog posts about my Tonalist painting process. However, it occurred to me that it would be good to take a little break from that and discuss the idea of looking at, living with and editing your own work.
I have touched on this concept of self editing before in this blog, but it is deserving of more attention. It's very easy to focus only on the positive 'actions' that one takes to create art. A bit like how it's easier to focus on the positive content of the picture (like a figure or a tree) as opposed to the negative space. For art to be good it must be in balance, and so good art is always the result of both action and inaction, thinking and feeling.
After I finished my first color pass I set it on a wall in my studio to my right. Against that wall I have two fairly large display easels. On those easels I like to place all of my recent paintings after I have completed a particular stage. This is an area where paintings dry but also a place where I can look at what I've done, think about it and continue the process of critical analysis that started with coming upon the scene in nature and, continues on through each of the stages of my process.
I find it important to put a frame on the painting in its intermediate stages. This creates a border that really helps me analyze the painting. I have known some painters that actually create their paintings in a frame (I might try it myself one day).
For the type of painting that I do, it's essential that the work also be presented in some sort of frame. I will discuss framing, it's importance and effect in a later blog post.
As I've mentioned previously on this blog, I tend to work on about 14 scenes at a time. I take each painting through all of my stages before completing any. This is a good number for me because it's not too many scenes but it is enough for there to be a reasonable span of time between the two color passes. This gives me a chance to look at the work in its first color state and really think about things that might be bothering me or ideas I may have as to ways that I could improve the picture.
I've tried in the past bringing one or two paintings to completion at a time but I feel I get more work done this way of a higher quality.
A phenomenon that I had noticed in my painting life is that I would complete a painting and put it on the wall. After a while when the newness of the painting wore off, I would slowly become aware of issues with the painting that needed to be resolved. This is not every painting I did, but definitely more than a few of them needed a bit of editing or reevaluation. Doing 14 scenes at a time gives me the opportunity to do that reevaluation while I'm still in the process of working on a given scene.
Not every painting that I do is going to be a masterwork, but there's no sense in having work out there in circulation that could be better or could have been improved. Fortunately I'm not a perfectionist and I'm quite happy to let things go after a certain point. Unlike my favorite painter George Inness. He was famous for reworking paintings and working over existing paintings that had been sold, even working over the paintings of his friends.
Tomorrow we will actually begin talking about the second color pass and I hope to give you some good information about my process in that regard so stay tuned.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Summer Montclair' by George Inness; this is a painting I have been aware of for quite a while and is one that comes up readily in an image search for Inness on Google. It wasn't actually until painting my study of this scene that I realized that the pond is shaped like a coffin.
This painting exhibits Inness' mastery of values and also edges. One thing he does in this painting that I generally try to avoid the is that he has a very odd tree shape in the middle ground trees. Also he has left a visual way out of the scene on the right-hand side as well as the left, which is working in this painting but is not something that I tend to do.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting,Summer Montclair by George Inness |