Dusk Meadow 18x24
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist painting by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Dusk Meadow' 18x24.
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final glazes and finishing brushstrokes. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
By the way, I should also mention that I am attempting to upload a higher resolution video today, this equates to a to jump from a 460 up to a 720 resolution, so hopefully all goes well.
I like to talk today about overworking your paintings. Or more correctly, how I can have a tendency to overwork my paintings. I've been painting for quite a while now and when I first started I was including a lot of extraneous detail in my work. Over time, I've learned the wisdom and benefit of subsuming detail so that the painting is more relaxed and able to breathe.
Like so many obstacles in our progression as painters, excessive detail and the pursuit thereof, can be and is a serious trap for most landscape painters at some point in their careers. I thought that I'd slayed this particular Dragon as I definitely now know not to include too much detail in my work. However, since completing the hundred days of Tonalism project a year ago, I have been becoming increasingly fixated on texture in my painting. I generally achieve a base texture through a combination of board preparation and also impasto brushstrokes on the first color pass of my painting.
When finishing my paintings I love to lightly apply thin amounts of paint to my painting surface by lightly dry brushing over the surface of my first (or in some cases my second) color pass. This creates a textured effect that I really enjoy and that I think looks totally cool. And while it does look totally cool, it also has a great potential for over softening my paintings and also decreasing the impact of my initial brushwork.
There's a balance the needs to be struck once you go down this path and it can be quite difficult to know when to stop when you started in with this effect. Once you've started working your painting over this way you cannot go back to opaque and direct brushstrokes without messing up the texturized quality.
In the recent pass of six paintings that I have completed, I got carried away with several of them and I have determined, in the next bunch that I'm doing, I will be allowing myself to only do two color passes. Previously I've been allowing myself three and sometimes four color passes.
As I stated in the video, every landscape painting is a collection of hundreds if not thousands of myriad decisions that all interact and affect each other. Allowing the painting to breathe and not be overworked is really important to achieving a high level of quality in the work. I'm not the first artist that has struggled with this and I'm sure I will not be the last.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Dusk Meadow 18x24; I've done a fair amount of texturising on this painting but it's within the realm of good to great and so I'm happy with it.
I have previously painted this motif as a 5x7 and also as an 8x10 and thought it would be a good one to do as an 18x24. The actual painting itself has a nice quality to it and is hanging up in my studio currently.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Dusk Meadow by M Francis McCarthy, 18x24 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final glazes and finishing brushstrokes. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
By the way, I should also mention that I am attempting to upload a higher resolution video today, this equates to a to jump from a 460 up to a 720 resolution, so hopefully all goes well.
I like to talk today about overworking your paintings. Or more correctly, how I can have a tendency to overwork my paintings. I've been painting for quite a while now and when I first started I was including a lot of extraneous detail in my work. Over time, I've learned the wisdom and benefit of subsuming detail so that the painting is more relaxed and able to breathe.
Like so many obstacles in our progression as painters, excessive detail and the pursuit thereof, can be and is a serious trap for most landscape painters at some point in their careers. I thought that I'd slayed this particular Dragon as I definitely now know not to include too much detail in my work. However, since completing the hundred days of Tonalism project a year ago, I have been becoming increasingly fixated on texture in my painting. I generally achieve a base texture through a combination of board preparation and also impasto brushstrokes on the first color pass of my painting.
When finishing my paintings I love to lightly apply thin amounts of paint to my painting surface by lightly dry brushing over the surface of my first (or in some cases my second) color pass. This creates a textured effect that I really enjoy and that I think looks totally cool. And while it does look totally cool, it also has a great potential for over softening my paintings and also decreasing the impact of my initial brushwork.
There's a balance the needs to be struck once you go down this path and it can be quite difficult to know when to stop when you started in with this effect. Once you've started working your painting over this way you cannot go back to opaque and direct brushstrokes without messing up the texturized quality.
In the recent pass of six paintings that I have completed, I got carried away with several of them and I have determined, in the next bunch that I'm doing, I will be allowing myself to only do two color passes. Previously I've been allowing myself three and sometimes four color passes.
As I stated in the video, every landscape painting is a collection of hundreds if not thousands of myriad decisions that all interact and affect each other. Allowing the painting to breathe and not be overworked is really important to achieving a high level of quality in the work. I'm not the first artist that has struggled with this and I'm sure I will not be the last.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Dusk Meadow 18x24; I've done a fair amount of texturising on this painting but it's within the realm of good to great and so I'm happy with it.
I have previously painted this motif as a 5x7 and also as an 8x10 and thought it would be a good one to do as an 18x24. The actual painting itself has a nice quality to it and is hanging up in my studio currently.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Dusk Meadow 18x24 (Detail) |
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| Dusk Meadow 18x24 (Detail 2) |