#18 John Francis Murphy, 'Landscape' - 25 Days of Tonalism
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is a study painted after John Francis Murphy -'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.
Today, I would like to talk about harmony of color in landscape painting. As I type this, it occurs to me that color harmony must first be achieved with the values used in the painting. If you are using the entire range of values from very dark to very light, it is going to be far more difficult to accomplish harmony with your color.
Much of what makes Tonalism tonal, is that it generally avoids the extremely bright and light colors of Impressionism. Tonalism is in many ways another way of saying harmony because what distinguishes it as an art movement is the tonal harmony of Tonalist paintings.
What are some of the ways that harmony can be achieved in a landscape painting other than just limiting the values to a portion of the value scale? I guess this might be a good place to break out some bullet points. Below is a list of some strategies:
These are a few good strategies, but the main way that I achieve harmonious color in my painting is by intending to do so. In my earliest attempts at Tonalism, I would often avoid extremes in value or color saturation. These days I am not so worried about avoiding those extremes because I have internalized an approach to color harmony that is reflected in everything I do.
This is mostly accomplished by knowing my color pigments and what they can do for me as well as where they can fall short. I have built up my palette over many years. I started initially with a very limited palette of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine blue as well as white.
I have written on this blog in the past about my progression of adding colors to that basic palette. By the way, I have since changed out Cadmium Yellow for Gamblin Hansa Yellow medium and I now use Cobalt Blue instead of Ultramarine.
From this limited start, I now have about 15 colors on my palette. It is very rare that I make any changes. There are times when I work with just aspects of my palette. For example, today I was painting a golden sunset and there was no need for me to use any blues or grays as all of my colors were earth tones, oranges and yellow.
Very interesting and harmonious effects can be achieved with limited color palettes. For example, Anders Leonard Zorn painted only with Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Medium and Ivory Black plus White. He achieved some amazing results with this very limited palette to the point where it appears there are many more colors in his paintings than just the four that he started with.
I would sum up here by saying again, the number one way to achieve tonal harmony in your painting is by intending to do so and trying different things out. Start with a limited palette and add only the colors that you need to to get the job done.
As a postscript, I would also like to say that one of the reasons I do not show my color palette in the videos or spend much time discussing specific color arrangements that I've selected, is because palette color selection is a very subjective thing and the colors that you place on your palette should be there because of who you are and how you paint.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study painted after John Francis Murphy - 'Landscape'; this is one of the instances in this series where I felt very limited by the size of the panel I was working on. There is a lot of interesting things going on in John's sky that I was not able to pull off well at this small scale.
That said, I am happy with this study and I learned a lot from painting it which is (as always) the point of this 25 days of Tonalism project. One of the greatest aspects of John Francis Murphy's work, is his approach to composition and I feel that more and more I am getting what he did and am able to incorporate it into my own work.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - 'Landscape' by J 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.
Today, I would like to talk about harmony of color in landscape painting. As I type this, it occurs to me that color harmony must first be achieved with the values used in the painting. If you are using the entire range of values from very dark to very light, it is going to be far more difficult to accomplish harmony with your color.
Much of what makes Tonalism tonal, is that it generally avoids the extremely bright and light colors of Impressionism. Tonalism is in many ways another way of saying harmony because what distinguishes it as an art movement is the tonal harmony of Tonalist paintings.
What are some of the ways that harmony can be achieved in a landscape painting other than just limiting the values to a portion of the value scale? I guess this might be a good place to break out some bullet points. Below is a list of some strategies:
- Limit your color palette to only a few colors.
- Tint your painting using glazes.
- Add a small amount of one color like black (for example), to each of your color mixes (this was a favorite tactic of Whistler).
- Avoid painting scenes with intense contrasts and instead, paint scenes like early morning, late afternoon or twilight as well as nocturnes.
- When you paint, think in terms of a focal color or series of colors. For example, I often pivot off of green and violet.
- Work on a ground color other than white
These are a few good strategies, but the main way that I achieve harmonious color in my painting is by intending to do so. In my earliest attempts at Tonalism, I would often avoid extremes in value or color saturation. These days I am not so worried about avoiding those extremes because I have internalized an approach to color harmony that is reflected in everything I do.
This is mostly accomplished by knowing my color pigments and what they can do for me as well as where they can fall short. I have built up my palette over many years. I started initially with a very limited palette of Cadmium Yellow, Alizarin Crimson and Ultramarine blue as well as white.
I have written on this blog in the past about my progression of adding colors to that basic palette. By the way, I have since changed out Cadmium Yellow for Gamblin Hansa Yellow medium and I now use Cobalt Blue instead of Ultramarine.
From this limited start, I now have about 15 colors on my palette. It is very rare that I make any changes. There are times when I work with just aspects of my palette. For example, today I was painting a golden sunset and there was no need for me to use any blues or grays as all of my colors were earth tones, oranges and yellow.
Very interesting and harmonious effects can be achieved with limited color palettes. For example, Anders Leonard Zorn painted only with Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red Medium and Ivory Black plus White. He achieved some amazing results with this very limited palette to the point where it appears there are many more colors in his paintings than just the four that he started with.
I would sum up here by saying again, the number one way to achieve tonal harmony in your painting is by intending to do so and trying different things out. Start with a limited palette and add only the colors that you need to to get the job done.
As a postscript, I would also like to say that one of the reasons I do not show my color palette in the videos or spend much time discussing specific color arrangements that I've selected, is because palette color selection is a very subjective thing and the colors that you place on your palette should be there because of who you are and how you paint.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study painted after John Francis Murphy - 'Landscape'; this is one of the instances in this series where I felt very limited by the size of the panel I was working on. There is a lot of interesting things going on in John's sky that I was not able to pull off well at this small scale.
That said, I am happy with this study and I learned a lot from painting it which is (as always) the point of this 25 days of Tonalism project. One of the greatest aspects of John Francis Murphy's work, is his approach to composition and I feel that more and more I am getting what he did and am able to incorporate it into my own work.
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 J Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy (Detail) |
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| Painted after - 'Landscape' by J Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy (Detail 2) |