Storm Over the Wetlands 8x8
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist painting by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Storm Over the Wetlands' 8x8.
Our video features the progression of this painting from its initial state on up through the final glazes and brushwork, also featured is my usual rambling narration so please check the video out.
As a painter you have two great allies in the painting process should you choose to accept their help, they are intuition and experience. In the narration for today's video I was mentioning struggles I was having with a painting that I am close to completing. It has a large road that is dominating the picture and not really working very well.
I did have some intuitive prompting about this, however, the thing that counters that intuitive prompting is the belief that I have that I can overcome whatever obstacles crop up and somehow manage to create a good painting. Intuition is nearly always right in its promptings. If you hear that small quiet voice telling you that something is a problem or a potential problem then intuition should really be listened to, because odds are it is indeed a problem.
Along with intuition the voice of experience can come into play. This interior voice knows about all of your failures and the things you've tried in the past that did not work and could not work. Landscape painting is such a complex and complicated endeavor that there are a myriad of things that can go wrong. One of the only ways to get very good at it is by failing.
I could write an entire blog post about failing but suffice to say here that it is very important to become comfortable at failing. While it is uncomfortable and certainly doesn't feel as good as succeeding it is impossible to succeed all the time and one of the best ways to become proficient is to be comfortable with failing and adjust your course accordingly.
Anyway, the voice of experiences much like the voice of intuition after a time because we forget what did not work in the past and like the voice of intuition the voice of experiences cab be very quiet and easily drowned out by the ego. This is not to denigrate the ego, the ego is the captain of the ship and the part of your mind that gets things done and finds ways to solve problems and persevere in the face of difficulty and adversity.
Interestingly, the successes you have only carry you for so long before you are craving the next success. While the failures seem to cling. This is just the way life is and probably one of the greatest challenges that artists face is reconciling the successes with the failures and finding a way to persevere.
If you feel a prompting from intuition or the voice of experience I highly recommend listening to it because it can save you a lot of unnecessary struggle and effort. Even if you do listen to these interior guides there would still be failures and that's okay. At the end of the day, even time spent doing a bad painting adds to your experience and will enable you to make the good ones better than they would have been without the shoulders of the failures to stand on.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Storm over the wetlands' 8x8; like the painting we did last week this is a revision of an older painting. The previous incarnation of this painting had an interesting sky but some issues with the composition of the landmasses that I had been in denial about through the entire painting process. The first thing I tried to do to rescue this painting was to crop it from an 8x10 to an 8x8. That did not succeed.
I am happy with it now though there are some areas that could be better. I'm contemplating doing this as a larger painting at some point in the future like a 14x14. I'm happy I revised the original as it's always great to have less bad paintings around.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Storm Over the Wetlands by M Francis McCarthy, 8x8 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from its initial state on up through the final glazes and brushwork, also featured is my usual rambling narration so please check the video out.
As a painter you have two great allies in the painting process should you choose to accept their help, they are intuition and experience. In the narration for today's video I was mentioning struggles I was having with a painting that I am close to completing. It has a large road that is dominating the picture and not really working very well.
I did have some intuitive prompting about this, however, the thing that counters that intuitive prompting is the belief that I have that I can overcome whatever obstacles crop up and somehow manage to create a good painting. Intuition is nearly always right in its promptings. If you hear that small quiet voice telling you that something is a problem or a potential problem then intuition should really be listened to, because odds are it is indeed a problem.
Along with intuition the voice of experience can come into play. This interior voice knows about all of your failures and the things you've tried in the past that did not work and could not work. Landscape painting is such a complex and complicated endeavor that there are a myriad of things that can go wrong. One of the only ways to get very good at it is by failing.
I could write an entire blog post about failing but suffice to say here that it is very important to become comfortable at failing. While it is uncomfortable and certainly doesn't feel as good as succeeding it is impossible to succeed all the time and one of the best ways to become proficient is to be comfortable with failing and adjust your course accordingly.
Anyway, the voice of experiences much like the voice of intuition after a time because we forget what did not work in the past and like the voice of intuition the voice of experiences cab be very quiet and easily drowned out by the ego. This is not to denigrate the ego, the ego is the captain of the ship and the part of your mind that gets things done and finds ways to solve problems and persevere in the face of difficulty and adversity.
Interestingly, the successes you have only carry you for so long before you are craving the next success. While the failures seem to cling. This is just the way life is and probably one of the greatest challenges that artists face is reconciling the successes with the failures and finding a way to persevere.
If you feel a prompting from intuition or the voice of experience I highly recommend listening to it because it can save you a lot of unnecessary struggle and effort. Even if you do listen to these interior guides there would still be failures and that's okay. At the end of the day, even time spent doing a bad painting adds to your experience and will enable you to make the good ones better than they would have been without the shoulders of the failures to stand on.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Storm over the wetlands' 8x8; like the painting we did last week this is a revision of an older painting. The previous incarnation of this painting had an interesting sky but some issues with the composition of the landmasses that I had been in denial about through the entire painting process. The first thing I tried to do to rescue this painting was to crop it from an 8x10 to an 8x8. That did not succeed.
I am happy with it now though there are some areas that could be better. I'm contemplating doing this as a larger painting at some point in the future like a 14x14. I'm happy I revised the original as it's always great to have less bad paintings around.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Storm Over the Wetlands (Detail) |
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| Storm Over the Wetlands (Detail 2) |