Afternoon Light 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is "Afternoon Light 5x7.
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 thought it would be interesting to talk about how the excess of visual imagery works for and against the landscape painter in the modern world.
The primary way that the plethora of images saturating all of us, at all times, works against the landscape painter, is mostly due to the sheer quantity of images that people are presented with every day. Centuries ago, the only way that any imagery could be created was by human hands. These days it's a far different story. We are inundated with images both ugly and beautiful at every turn.
Because painted imagery was so rare before the modern era, people held it in higher esteem and justifiably gave it more respect and attention. Now, we are bombarded with images daily and even just driving down the road, we will have images of all types thrust at us. Many of our modern movies contain imagery that is the result of hundreds of hours of work by dozens of artists. These images are often breathtaking in scope and complexity, not to mention beauty.
This is how the image bombardment of the modern age works against a landscape painter. What are some of the ways that the easy availability of imagery can work for the landscape painter? One way that comes to mind almost immediately, is as reference. I often search around online for bits of reference to assist in my painting process. My preferred working method is to always shoot my own photography but there are times when I need to grab a path or a river from some other source.
Speaking of taking my own photographs, it is so laughably easy now to capture imagery by the voluminous hard-drive full, that it's not even funny. Digital cameras and computers have changed photography for all of us in a major way.
This is one of the reasons I think it's very difficult for the modern nature photographer to put themselves forward as artists. Back at the time when Ansell Adams was working, you needed extremely expensive equipment and a lab full of chemicals not to mention years of training and study to apply different effects to your nature photography. It was "perhaps" a different story then.
Another way that the easy availability of visual imagery helps the modern landscape painter, is the ease that you can photograph your own work and distribute it online, not just as still photos but in video form also. I take full advantage of this technology on a regular basis.
This still leaves us with the issue of the average person's oversaturation with visual images. What is the modern artists to do in the face of this oversaturation that cheapens imagery in general, and costs us eyes and attention?
This is an issue that I saw coming many years ago and as it became easier to create and render images with the computer, I've grappled with this problem.
The best solution I see to this dilemma, is to move the emphasis away from computer manipulated/rendered images and more into actual physical paintings. The wonderful thing about an original painting is that it is a physical object that contains an actual embedded record of everything that went into the creation of the two-dimensional image (on the paintings face).
While the painting contains a two-dimensional representation of a scene, it is also a three-dimensional physical object that is one-of-a-kind, and for that reason completely special and irreplaceable.
Paintings are inherently valuable even if not always immediately recognized as being so by people that regard them at a surface level, in passing. Like so many beautiful and worthwhile things they require some learning and focused attention to be appreciated. As I see it, the only avenue left to the serious artists these days is to create original, physical works of art.
I should add as a postscript that I believe very much in using computers to support my painting process. In many ways they allow me to do things that would be far more difficult without accessing modern, convenient technology. Ultimately though, all that digital work goes into creating a one-of-a-kind physical painting that can never be replaced.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Afternoon Light' 5x7; this is not a typical motif for me and in many ways it stands unique amongst paintings that I have done. I do like this study and I also like the larger piece that we will be discussing next week, hopefully you dig it as well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| ''Afternoon Light' by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting 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 thought it would be interesting to talk about how the excess of visual imagery works for and against the landscape painter in the modern world.
The primary way that the plethora of images saturating all of us, at all times, works against the landscape painter, is mostly due to the sheer quantity of images that people are presented with every day. Centuries ago, the only way that any imagery could be created was by human hands. These days it's a far different story. We are inundated with images both ugly and beautiful at every turn.
Because painted imagery was so rare before the modern era, people held it in higher esteem and justifiably gave it more respect and attention. Now, we are bombarded with images daily and even just driving down the road, we will have images of all types thrust at us. Many of our modern movies contain imagery that is the result of hundreds of hours of work by dozens of artists. These images are often breathtaking in scope and complexity, not to mention beauty.
This is how the image bombardment of the modern age works against a landscape painter. What are some of the ways that the easy availability of imagery can work for the landscape painter? One way that comes to mind almost immediately, is as reference. I often search around online for bits of reference to assist in my painting process. My preferred working method is to always shoot my own photography but there are times when I need to grab a path or a river from some other source.
Speaking of taking my own photographs, it is so laughably easy now to capture imagery by the voluminous hard-drive full, that it's not even funny. Digital cameras and computers have changed photography for all of us in a major way.
This is one of the reasons I think it's very difficult for the modern nature photographer to put themselves forward as artists. Back at the time when Ansell Adams was working, you needed extremely expensive equipment and a lab full of chemicals not to mention years of training and study to apply different effects to your nature photography. It was "perhaps" a different story then.
Another way that the easy availability of visual imagery helps the modern landscape painter, is the ease that you can photograph your own work and distribute it online, not just as still photos but in video form also. I take full advantage of this technology on a regular basis.
This still leaves us with the issue of the average person's oversaturation with visual images. What is the modern artists to do in the face of this oversaturation that cheapens imagery in general, and costs us eyes and attention?
This is an issue that I saw coming many years ago and as it became easier to create and render images with the computer, I've grappled with this problem.
The best solution I see to this dilemma, is to move the emphasis away from computer manipulated/rendered images and more into actual physical paintings. The wonderful thing about an original painting is that it is a physical object that contains an actual embedded record of everything that went into the creation of the two-dimensional image (on the paintings face).
While the painting contains a two-dimensional representation of a scene, it is also a three-dimensional physical object that is one-of-a-kind, and for that reason completely special and irreplaceable.
Paintings are inherently valuable even if not always immediately recognized as being so by people that regard them at a surface level, in passing. Like so many beautiful and worthwhile things they require some learning and focused attention to be appreciated. As I see it, the only avenue left to the serious artists these days is to create original, physical works of art.
I should add as a postscript that I believe very much in using computers to support my painting process. In many ways they allow me to do things that would be far more difficult without accessing modern, convenient technology. Ultimately though, all that digital work goes into creating a one-of-a-kind physical painting that can never be replaced.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Afternoon Light' 5x7; this is not a typical motif for me and in many ways it stands unique amongst paintings that I have done. I do like this study and I also like the larger piece that we will be discussing next week, hopefully you dig it as well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| ''Afternoon Light' by M Francis McCarthy (Detail) |
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| ''Afternoon Light' by M Francis McCarthy (Detail2) |