Spring Countryside 8x10
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Spring Countryside' 8x10.
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages, on up through the final finishing brushstrokes. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
I thought it would be interesting today to talk about modulation. By modulation I mostly mean color modulation. This is a word that is in my head all of the time when I am at the process of painting.
It is always desirable in painting to modulate your colors from cool to warm or from one hue to the next, instead of just laying down areas of flat unmodulated color. While a flat approach can be a style in and of itself (and was popular for things like graphics in the 1980s), it is usually better to move your colors around.
If I'm painting a large bank of clouds in the sky I might start with a cool gray on one side of the cloud bank moving over to a warm gray on the other side. I would also tend to modulate the values from darker to lighter and vice versa.
One of the reasons the word modulation is in my mind all the time while painting, is because there are very few aspects of an oil painting that will not benefit from modulation of some type or another.
When I'm doing the sky behind the clouds I almost always modulate the background sky color from a very dark deep intense blue at the top to a color that is almost a light creamy ochre at the bottom. Dancing over this modulation are clouds themselves that have also been painted from warm to cool and from one hue to the next.
An especially crucial place to think of this aspect of landscape painting would be where the trees meet the sky. This is a good place to modulate the tree edges by adding a bit of sky color to your tree color so that you have a area of transition. This gives a feeling of space and air, whereas if your trees are harshly silhouetted against the sky, it often can feel like they are cutouts. This is a place where photographs can betray many painters. Most photographs will present a harsh edge between the trees and the sky unless there is some sort of atmospheric condition intruding like fog or rain.
Another good place to think of modulation is in the ground plane. The areas of dirt and grass and rock need to be modulated just the same as the sky is. In the case of the ground, I will generally use warmer darker colors at the bottom and edges while increasing my colors hue and vibrance as I come closer to where the earth meets the sky.
A short blog post today but I think a very valuable insight into the sort of mental approach you can bring to bear when creating an oil painting. Modulate, modulate, modulate as you paint.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Spring Countryside' 8x10; I'm happy with this small painting and I can call it a small painting as I am doing quite a few more larger paintings now, and really starting to notice how small 8x10 is in size.
This painting actually gives you a good example of modulation if you look at the way the rolling hills have been modulated from a cool darker color on the bottom right side to a warm, more vibrant green at the hills approach the sky. This leads the eye on up through the rows of hills to the sky.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Spring Countryside by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages, on up through the final finishing brushstrokes. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
I thought it would be interesting today to talk about modulation. By modulation I mostly mean color modulation. This is a word that is in my head all of the time when I am at the process of painting.
It is always desirable in painting to modulate your colors from cool to warm or from one hue to the next, instead of just laying down areas of flat unmodulated color. While a flat approach can be a style in and of itself (and was popular for things like graphics in the 1980s), it is usually better to move your colors around.
If I'm painting a large bank of clouds in the sky I might start with a cool gray on one side of the cloud bank moving over to a warm gray on the other side. I would also tend to modulate the values from darker to lighter and vice versa.
One of the reasons the word modulation is in my mind all the time while painting, is because there are very few aspects of an oil painting that will not benefit from modulation of some type or another.
When I'm doing the sky behind the clouds I almost always modulate the background sky color from a very dark deep intense blue at the top to a color that is almost a light creamy ochre at the bottom. Dancing over this modulation are clouds themselves that have also been painted from warm to cool and from one hue to the next.
An especially crucial place to think of this aspect of landscape painting would be where the trees meet the sky. This is a good place to modulate the tree edges by adding a bit of sky color to your tree color so that you have a area of transition. This gives a feeling of space and air, whereas if your trees are harshly silhouetted against the sky, it often can feel like they are cutouts. This is a place where photographs can betray many painters. Most photographs will present a harsh edge between the trees and the sky unless there is some sort of atmospheric condition intruding like fog or rain.
Another good place to think of modulation is in the ground plane. The areas of dirt and grass and rock need to be modulated just the same as the sky is. In the case of the ground, I will generally use warmer darker colors at the bottom and edges while increasing my colors hue and vibrance as I come closer to where the earth meets the sky.
A short blog post today but I think a very valuable insight into the sort of mental approach you can bring to bear when creating an oil painting. Modulate, modulate, modulate as you paint.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Spring Countryside' 8x10; I'm happy with this small painting and I can call it a small painting as I am doing quite a few more larger paintings now, and really starting to notice how small 8x10 is in size.
This painting actually gives you a good example of modulation if you look at the way the rolling hills have been modulated from a cool darker color on the bottom right side to a warm, more vibrant green at the hills approach the sky. This leads the eye on up through the rows of hills to the sky.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Spring Countryside by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 (Detail) |
 |
| Spring Countryside by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 (Detail 2) |