Out of the Vale 5x7
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| 'Out of the Vale' by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's painting is 'Out of the Vale' 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 would like to talk about making a good start. Many solid arguments could be made for this being the hardest part of accomplishing any task. I am a firm believer in the concept of "how you start is how you finish" so I have developed several good strategies for supporting myself artistically. A lot of that centers around getting a good start.
The first thing that I do to ensure a good start is to take lots of good reference photographs from a variety of different types of landscape. If I were a Plein Air painter then I would accomplish the same task by going out and painting in many different locales.
I take a lot of photographs when I'm in front of a particular scene because I never know if I will be there again, many times you see things in the computer while going over your reference photographs that you were not really aware of while at the actual location.
The second thing I do to ensure a good start to my painting is that I work with my reference photographs quite a lot in Photoshop prior to using them to start my painting. This might mean anything from adjusting colors to modifying the existing sky, to the moving trees, rocks or bushes that do not lend themselves to the composition.
The third thing I do to ensure a good start to my larger paintings is that I do a small study. This gives me a chance to visually integrate the image while creating a small painting quickly that will tell me a lot about whether that scene is going to make a nice larger painting. I enjoy doing studies and find them an invaluable aid to assist in accomplishing my larger work.
The fourth thing that I do to ensure a good start is that I will premix anywhere from 8 to 12 of the main colors from the scene on my palette prior to starting my painting. This also gives me a chance to go over the image and to line up my ducks, so to speak.
The fifth thing that I do to ensure a good start is that I make sure I have my boards adequately prepared and sanded so that when it comes time to paint, I can concentrate on getting the paint onto the board without having to muck about.
The sixth thing that I do to ensure a good start to both my studies and larger paintings, is to do an underpainting in two colors, burnt sienna and black. I let the underpainting dry prior to going in with my color. It makes doing the color stage easier because I've already established my composition and some basic value patterning.
All of these steps help make it easier for me to start a painting. Each one adds up to painting the first color pass better as I have so much preparatory information already handled. I consider the first color pass to be the most important aspect of my painting process because the bulk of the painting is accomplished there.
This is not to say that the underpainting is not important or that my finishing color passes are also not important, just less so than the first color pass. By the way, when I date my paintings I always date for that first color pass because there are times when I feel that that is enough and do not do any more work on the painting.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Out of the Vale' 5x7; the scene is based on some recent photographs I took while on vacation in England. I absolutely love the English countryside and especially love how lush and green it is. No doubt you will see many pictures of scenes where we are on a road coming out into a lighted area since I am very attracted to that sort of scene and have accumulated quite a lot of nice reference while on my trip.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| 'Out of the Vale' by M Francis McCarthy (Detail 1) |
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| 'Out of the Vale' by M Francis McCarthy (Detail 2) |