#3 John Francis Murphy "Landscape" - 25 Days of Tonalism
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is a study painted after John Francis Murphy called 'Landscape.'
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
A little bit late today but have no fear, we are getting back on schedule and moving forward, always forward. Today I like to speak a little bit about why I work indoors and some of the advantages and disadvantages of this working strategy.
Since I'm doing two blog posts today I will be covering this topic in two aspects, the first pertaining to the advantages of working indoors and the second to what I call the synthetic approach.
There are several reasons that I prefer to work on my landscape paintings indoors. The first and most significant is that painting indoors allows me to be in control of my environment. There are as many different ways to paint a landscape as there are landscape painters. I am the type that favors control.
Another significant reason is that I am very interested in capturing light effects that change very quickly when actually occurring outdoors. For the most part, this would be twilight and sunset but as well as dawn and early morning effects. Also, painting indoors allows me to take the time necessary to create the type of effects and atmosphere that I am looking for in my work.
I do not denigrate or impugn Plein air painting at all. I have done a fair amount myself and it is the way that I got my start. There are many fine Plein air painters and I enjoy quite a lot of Plein air painting. For me though, the rapid changes in lighting and weather conditions here in New Zealand preclude me from really enjoying working in this manner.
There are some fantastic aspects of painting outdoors that should be noted and I recommend any beginning painter take a stab at it. The main benefit I see to painting outdoors is that there are quite a lot of amazing colors that you only see in nature that are not captured by photography very well. Also cameras and camera lenses can induce strange focal length artifacts on photographs. In addition to this, photography is flat and two-dimensional whereas nature and our human perception sees things in three dimensions.
These are significant advantages to be sure. However, they do not outweigh the control and ability to achieve certain effects that working indoors allows me to achieve. In our next blog post, I will be talking about the other very significant reasons that I like to work indoors and that is the "synthetic approach" that is very much a part of what tonalism is and evokes.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study after John Francis Murphy's painting 'Landscape'; this is a good composition from John Francis Murphy and as I stated in the past, I feel composition was one of his strong suits. While there does not seem to be much going on in this painting it has a lot of characteristic elements of Tonalism and succeeds at evoking a mood.
One day I hope to actually see some John Francis Murphy paintings in real life but I get a lot even from low-quality low-resolution reproductions of his work. There are several more studies after John Francis Murphy paintings that we will be doing in the 25 days of Tonalism project, so stay tuned.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Painted after - "Landscape" by John Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
A little bit late today but have no fear, we are getting back on schedule and moving forward, always forward. Today I like to speak a little bit about why I work indoors and some of the advantages and disadvantages of this working strategy.
Since I'm doing two blog posts today I will be covering this topic in two aspects, the first pertaining to the advantages of working indoors and the second to what I call the synthetic approach.
There are several reasons that I prefer to work on my landscape paintings indoors. The first and most significant is that painting indoors allows me to be in control of my environment. There are as many different ways to paint a landscape as there are landscape painters. I am the type that favors control.
Another significant reason is that I am very interested in capturing light effects that change very quickly when actually occurring outdoors. For the most part, this would be twilight and sunset but as well as dawn and early morning effects. Also, painting indoors allows me to take the time necessary to create the type of effects and atmosphere that I am looking for in my work.
I do not denigrate or impugn Plein air painting at all. I have done a fair amount myself and it is the way that I got my start. There are many fine Plein air painters and I enjoy quite a lot of Plein air painting. For me though, the rapid changes in lighting and weather conditions here in New Zealand preclude me from really enjoying working in this manner.
There are some fantastic aspects of painting outdoors that should be noted and I recommend any beginning painter take a stab at it. The main benefit I see to painting outdoors is that there are quite a lot of amazing colors that you only see in nature that are not captured by photography very well. Also cameras and camera lenses can induce strange focal length artifacts on photographs. In addition to this, photography is flat and two-dimensional whereas nature and our human perception sees things in three dimensions.
These are significant advantages to be sure. However, they do not outweigh the control and ability to achieve certain effects that working indoors allows me to achieve. In our next blog post, I will be talking about the other very significant reasons that I like to work indoors and that is the "synthetic approach" that is very much a part of what tonalism is and evokes.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study after John Francis Murphy's painting 'Landscape'; this is a good composition from John Francis Murphy and as I stated in the past, I feel composition was one of his strong suits. While there does not seem to be much going on in this painting it has a lot of characteristic elements of Tonalism and succeeds at evoking a mood.
One day I hope to actually see some John Francis Murphy paintings in real life but I get a lot even from low-quality low-resolution reproductions of his work. There are several more studies after John Francis Murphy paintings that we will be doing in the 25 days of Tonalism project, so stay tuned.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Landscape by J Francis Murphy |
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| Painted after - "Landscape" by John Francis Murphy (Detail 1) |
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| Painted after - "Landscape" by John Francis Murphy (Detail 2) |