Day Sixty Six: Evening in Connecticut by Charles Warren Eaton
Hello and welcome to day 66 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is 'Evening in Connecticut' by Charles Warren Eaton.
This painting is very representative of quite a lot of Charles' work. He was famous for painting white pines and was also famous for painting sunsets and twilight scenes. A nice audio track on todays video, it is called 'Indeep'. This is a track I did in 2004 and never put on a record, so sorry no link.
On with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; today I would like to continue on with our discussion of my first color pass. Yesterday we discussed how I approach painting the sky. Today we will talk about trees. Trees are one of the most challenging things to paint well. I've been at it eight years or so, and though it's gotten easier there are always challenges.
I heard on the radio the other day that there were over 3 trillion trees on this planet. That's a lot of trees! In a landscape painting, trees act as the figures. Because of their vertical emphasis (in what is otherwise a horizontal space), they tend to call more attention to themselves than most other elements of the painting.
As I stated in previous blogs I start with a drawing that is going to be underneath my first color pass. I've already started wrangling with the tree forms and the values in my drawing by the time I'm ready to come in with color. My approach is to to paint the sky first and then when I'm ready,do my trees I will go in with my darkest tree colors. My logic being, that dark recedes while light comes forward. Note: this applies to the ground plane, it does not apply to the sky, since the sky is generally the brightest part of any painting.
I like to do the dark colors in my tree shapes with a mixture of Alizarin Crimson and Phthalo Green. This creates a very dark color that is still transparent. This color also has a bit of a purplish characteristic which is very advantageous, in that most shadows on the ground in nature tend to have a purplish cast to them.
I've never painted my darkest areas with just ivory black. The reason for this is that ivory black is a very cold color. It's lacking in life and since I'm painting things that are alive it's far better to work with the chromatic black that I am mixing from Alizarin Crimson and Phthalo Green.
One thing I've learned to do after several years of experiences is to keep the dark colors in my vertical forms much darker than the dark colors in the horizontal forms. For example, you might have a clump of dark trees behind the main trees you are painting. It's almost always a good idea to make the darkest color (especially of more distant objects) less dark than any of your main vertical areas.
After placing my darks in I will then work with the variety of green and brown tones that are next darkest in value to my darkest color. This essentially gives us a bit of an overlap process and is logical in that we've progressed from dark to light.
After that, I will go in with my medium green tones or russet type colors and lastly, I will paint the lightest brown, green and tan areas. I generally hold off from doing the very lightest colors that will be in my painting until I come in later to do more work in my second color pass.I need to leave some room in the value scale for the stuff that is coming.
Tomorrow we will continue with discussing painting the ground plane in the first colour pass.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening in Connecticut' by Charles Warren Eaton; this painting is very simple, almost abstract in its approach. It is also quite dark.
I enjoyed painting the yellows and ochres in the sky and the study went pretty quickly due to the great amount of simplification that Charles has done already in his painting.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Evening Connecticut by Charles Warren Eaton , Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Today study is 'Evening in Connecticut' by Charles Warren Eaton.
This painting is very representative of quite a lot of Charles' work. He was famous for painting white pines and was also famous for painting sunsets and twilight scenes. A nice audio track on todays video, it is called 'Indeep'. This is a track I did in 2004 and never put on a record, so sorry no link.
On with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; today I would like to continue on with our discussion of my first color pass. Yesterday we discussed how I approach painting the sky. Today we will talk about trees. Trees are one of the most challenging things to paint well. I've been at it eight years or so, and though it's gotten easier there are always challenges.
I heard on the radio the other day that there were over 3 trillion trees on this planet. That's a lot of trees! In a landscape painting, trees act as the figures. Because of their vertical emphasis (in what is otherwise a horizontal space), they tend to call more attention to themselves than most other elements of the painting.
As I stated in previous blogs I start with a drawing that is going to be underneath my first color pass. I've already started wrangling with the tree forms and the values in my drawing by the time I'm ready to come in with color. My approach is to to paint the sky first and then when I'm ready,do my trees I will go in with my darkest tree colors. My logic being, that dark recedes while light comes forward. Note: this applies to the ground plane, it does not apply to the sky, since the sky is generally the brightest part of any painting.
I like to do the dark colors in my tree shapes with a mixture of Alizarin Crimson and Phthalo Green. This creates a very dark color that is still transparent. This color also has a bit of a purplish characteristic which is very advantageous, in that most shadows on the ground in nature tend to have a purplish cast to them.
I've never painted my darkest areas with just ivory black. The reason for this is that ivory black is a very cold color. It's lacking in life and since I'm painting things that are alive it's far better to work with the chromatic black that I am mixing from Alizarin Crimson and Phthalo Green.
One thing I've learned to do after several years of experiences is to keep the dark colors in my vertical forms much darker than the dark colors in the horizontal forms. For example, you might have a clump of dark trees behind the main trees you are painting. It's almost always a good idea to make the darkest color (especially of more distant objects) less dark than any of your main vertical areas.
After placing my darks in I will then work with the variety of green and brown tones that are next darkest in value to my darkest color. This essentially gives us a bit of an overlap process and is logical in that we've progressed from dark to light.
After that, I will go in with my medium green tones or russet type colors and lastly, I will paint the lightest brown, green and tan areas. I generally hold off from doing the very lightest colors that will be in my painting until I come in later to do more work in my second color pass.I need to leave some room in the value scale for the stuff that is coming.
Tomorrow we will continue with discussing painting the ground plane in the first colour pass.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening in Connecticut' by Charles Warren Eaton; this painting is very simple, almost abstract in its approach. It is also quite dark.
I enjoyed painting the yellows and ochres in the sky and the study went pretty quickly due to the great amount of simplification that Charles has done already in his painting.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Evening in Connecticut by Charles Warren Eaton |