Arcadian Road (10x14)
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is Arcadian Road 10x14".
As promised we are getting into the larger version of 'Arcadian Road' today. The speed of the video is about 14 times faster than I painted. That seems a bit fast, but I like to keep the length of the videos around seven or eight minutes so that is what determines how fast I render each video.
I was talking today on the video narration about my ground color. In painting, the word "ground" refers to the color of the surface you are painting on, whether it is watercolor, oils or acrylic. It is very helpful to start on a toned surface as opposed to painting directly on white. Many artists do not actually think about this, but it is one of the foundational decisions that you make when approaching a painting. If you're using white, that means that the way you paint each shape must overlap so that no little bits of white canvas show through. I think this has a definite impact on the way a painting looks.
My ground color of choice is burnt sienna. This is a technique that I picked up from Birge Harrison in his book about landscape painting. Tonalism ran concurrently with Impressionism. Both styles of painting achieve a vibrational quality. Vibration is accomplished in Impressionism predominately by placing strong primary colors adjacent to each other and thus the colors are mixed in the eye of the viewer. Tonalism achieves vibration by the use of a orangish red ground color that peaks out from behind brushstrokes and bleeds through thinner passages. The use of an orangish red also creates vibration when colors like green are put on top of it, (because green is a complementary of red).
There are times when I make exceptions to the use of burnt sienna as my ground color. So far the main exception is when I'm doing a nocturne (night scene). With these type of paintings I have been using a cobalt blue that is mixed with a bit of black. This is the technique that I employed for the blue paintings that were in the (recently completed) 100 days of Tonalism series. I have also been using a blue ground in my own work recently. So far, I think it works pretty well, but I am also contemplating doing nocturnes in the future with a neutral 50% gray tone as the ground. I'm sure at some point I'll get around to showing some of that work on this blog or my website, so stay tuned for that.
Having a toned board is absolutely essential for me in that it creates harmony quite readily. I have a good mastery of my color mixes and a sound approach to color theory, but starting with a toned ground means that all of this knowledge is enhanced. If I had to, I could do paintings on a white canvas and still get a decent painting but I won't be doing that anytime soon because I can get a better result using my orangish red ground color.
As I stated in the video narration the use of the burnt sienna ground was one of the few bits of information I held back on sharing in my first blog M Francis McCarthy here on blogger. Back then, I felt I had to keep something in reserve and truth be told, the use of burnt sienna as a ground color is one of the most important ingredients to achieving Tonalist painting. It's possible to do a Tonalist painting without it, but so much easier with that red ground as a base.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Arcadian Road'; I mentioned last week that I have painted this scene before. The title of that painting was country road and it looks quite a bit different than this painting even though I used the same photographic reference. This is something that I am fascinated by and I imagine I will probably do another version of this painting again at some point, and it too will no doubt be quite a bit different than the ones that preceded it.
Painting can be a very deep and engrossing way of being. The painting changes as the artist changes and that is one of the great things about art.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Arcadian Road by M Francis McCarthy, 10x14, Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
As promised we are getting into the larger version of 'Arcadian Road' today. The speed of the video is about 14 times faster than I painted. That seems a bit fast, but I like to keep the length of the videos around seven or eight minutes so that is what determines how fast I render each video.
I was talking today on the video narration about my ground color. In painting, the word "ground" refers to the color of the surface you are painting on, whether it is watercolor, oils or acrylic. It is very helpful to start on a toned surface as opposed to painting directly on white. Many artists do not actually think about this, but it is one of the foundational decisions that you make when approaching a painting. If you're using white, that means that the way you paint each shape must overlap so that no little bits of white canvas show through. I think this has a definite impact on the way a painting looks.
My ground color of choice is burnt sienna. This is a technique that I picked up from Birge Harrison in his book about landscape painting. Tonalism ran concurrently with Impressionism. Both styles of painting achieve a vibrational quality. Vibration is accomplished in Impressionism predominately by placing strong primary colors adjacent to each other and thus the colors are mixed in the eye of the viewer. Tonalism achieves vibration by the use of a orangish red ground color that peaks out from behind brushstrokes and bleeds through thinner passages. The use of an orangish red also creates vibration when colors like green are put on top of it, (because green is a complementary of red).
There are times when I make exceptions to the use of burnt sienna as my ground color. So far the main exception is when I'm doing a nocturne (night scene). With these type of paintings I have been using a cobalt blue that is mixed with a bit of black. This is the technique that I employed for the blue paintings that were in the (recently completed) 100 days of Tonalism series. I have also been using a blue ground in my own work recently. So far, I think it works pretty well, but I am also contemplating doing nocturnes in the future with a neutral 50% gray tone as the ground. I'm sure at some point I'll get around to showing some of that work on this blog or my website, so stay tuned for that.
Having a toned board is absolutely essential for me in that it creates harmony quite readily. I have a good mastery of my color mixes and a sound approach to color theory, but starting with a toned ground means that all of this knowledge is enhanced. If I had to, I could do paintings on a white canvas and still get a decent painting but I won't be doing that anytime soon because I can get a better result using my orangish red ground color.
As I stated in the video narration the use of the burnt sienna ground was one of the few bits of information I held back on sharing in my first blog M Francis McCarthy here on blogger. Back then, I felt I had to keep something in reserve and truth be told, the use of burnt sienna as a ground color is one of the most important ingredients to achieving Tonalist painting. It's possible to do a Tonalist painting without it, but so much easier with that red ground as a base.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Arcadian Road'; I mentioned last week that I have painted this scene before. The title of that painting was country road and it looks quite a bit different than this painting even though I used the same photographic reference. This is something that I am fascinated by and I imagine I will probably do another version of this painting again at some point, and it too will no doubt be quite a bit different than the ones that preceded it.
Painting can be a very deep and engrossing way of being. The painting changes as the artist changes and that is one of the great things about art.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Arcadian Road 10 x 14 (Detail) |