Evening Path 5x5
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Evening Path' 5x5.
Our video features the progression of this study from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Yesterday, we were talking about constraints and how they relate to art. I touched upon the topic of grounds in that post (ground meaning the surface that we are painting on). Today, I'd like to talk a little bit more about this subject.
There is no doubt that the most popular surface for artists to do paintings on, is canvas. There are two basic types of canvas that artists work on, cotton duck and linen. Cotton duck is far more popular, mostly because it is cheaper. Cotton duck tends to have a more coarse texture and it is the primary type of canvas that you will find pre-stretched in your local art or craft store. Linen canvas has a finer texture and a much tighter weave. There is no question that of the two, linen is far superior but it is also much more expensive.
I was recently sent an email by a company called Natural Pigments that sells many traditional pigments and specialized substrates. The article is about canvas and the general issues common with working on it. I'm putting a link to that article here.
To briefly summarize the article, the main issue that you will have with canvas is that humidity and changes in temperature cause the canvas to expand and contract over time in a different way than the paint film on top of it. This causes cracking in the paint film as well as other issues. One of the ways that some artists get around this, is by mounting their canvas to boards and then doing their painting.
This leads us to painting on boards, whether they are made out of wood, metal or some modern synthetic substrates. As some of you may know, I work on wood boards exclusively. I have tried many different types of ply and these days I work on an MDF board that is laminated with Kauri. This works very well for me because there is very little warping and yet, I get all of the advantages of working on wood in that there is a nice grain that's interacts with my board preparation technique. I will be talking about how I prep my board's in a future blog post. I'm pretty sure this is a topic I've addressed before as well.
Some painters work on metal substrates generally copper or zinc. These days there are also some interesting synthetic boards that will probably last forever. I haven't tried the synthetic boards yet. I'm fairly confident that my laminated MDF solution is going to be very long-lasting. Also, because I live here in New Zealand, I would be paying through the nose for these new synthetic substrates as they would have to be specially imported.
My main issue with canvas is not so much the permanence factor, though I am very concerned with permanence. I'm not especially fond of the texture of canvas, especially cotton duck. I did do some pricing on linen but it was so astronomically high out here that I decided to stick with my specially prepared board.
One of the historical reasons that canvas gained in popularity, was that as artists worked in larger and larger sizes, using boards became problematic because wooden panels can be unwieldy and heavy in larger sizes. Also, working on canvas enables you to stretch and restretch the canvas as needed. Painted canvases can be rolled up and stored to be re-stretched at a later time.
By the way, concern regarding the permanence of your art and the vicissitudes of time are best left to artists producing professional work. If you are a student or amateur, I wouldn't worry much about it until you are producing paintings that are consistently good, it's not a problem to work with more impermanent materials.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening Path' 5x5; as I stated in the video, this painting resembles the initial photographic reference only vaguely. I made many significant changes to the reference photo in Photoshop prior to painting.
For the most part, I'm very happy with this motif and the way that this study turned out, as well as the larger painting that we will be discussing next week.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| 'Evening Path' by M Francis McCarthy, 5x5 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the progression of this study from its early underpainting stages on up through the final finishing brushwork. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
Yesterday, we were talking about constraints and how they relate to art. I touched upon the topic of grounds in that post (ground meaning the surface that we are painting on). Today, I'd like to talk a little bit more about this subject.
There is no doubt that the most popular surface for artists to do paintings on, is canvas. There are two basic types of canvas that artists work on, cotton duck and linen. Cotton duck is far more popular, mostly because it is cheaper. Cotton duck tends to have a more coarse texture and it is the primary type of canvas that you will find pre-stretched in your local art or craft store. Linen canvas has a finer texture and a much tighter weave. There is no question that of the two, linen is far superior but it is also much more expensive.
I was recently sent an email by a company called Natural Pigments that sells many traditional pigments and specialized substrates. The article is about canvas and the general issues common with working on it. I'm putting a link to that article here.
To briefly summarize the article, the main issue that you will have with canvas is that humidity and changes in temperature cause the canvas to expand and contract over time in a different way than the paint film on top of it. This causes cracking in the paint film as well as other issues. One of the ways that some artists get around this, is by mounting their canvas to boards and then doing their painting.
This leads us to painting on boards, whether they are made out of wood, metal or some modern synthetic substrates. As some of you may know, I work on wood boards exclusively. I have tried many different types of ply and these days I work on an MDF board that is laminated with Kauri. This works very well for me because there is very little warping and yet, I get all of the advantages of working on wood in that there is a nice grain that's interacts with my board preparation technique. I will be talking about how I prep my board's in a future blog post. I'm pretty sure this is a topic I've addressed before as well.
Some painters work on metal substrates generally copper or zinc. These days there are also some interesting synthetic boards that will probably last forever. I haven't tried the synthetic boards yet. I'm fairly confident that my laminated MDF solution is going to be very long-lasting. Also, because I live here in New Zealand, I would be paying through the nose for these new synthetic substrates as they would have to be specially imported.
My main issue with canvas is not so much the permanence factor, though I am very concerned with permanence. I'm not especially fond of the texture of canvas, especially cotton duck. I did do some pricing on linen but it was so astronomically high out here that I decided to stick with my specially prepared board.
One of the historical reasons that canvas gained in popularity, was that as artists worked in larger and larger sizes, using boards became problematic because wooden panels can be unwieldy and heavy in larger sizes. Also, working on canvas enables you to stretch and restretch the canvas as needed. Painted canvases can be rolled up and stored to be re-stretched at a later time.
By the way, concern regarding the permanence of your art and the vicissitudes of time are best left to artists producing professional work. If you are a student or amateur, I wouldn't worry much about it until you are producing paintings that are consistently good, it's not a problem to work with more impermanent materials.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening Path' 5x5; as I stated in the video, this painting resembles the initial photographic reference only vaguely. I made many significant changes to the reference photo in Photoshop prior to painting.
For the most part, I'm very happy with this motif and the way that this study turned out, as well as the larger painting that we will be discussing next week.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Evening Path 5x5 (Detail) |
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| Evening Path 5x5 (Detail 2) |