#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
 |
| 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 |
 |
| Painted after - "Landscape" by John Francis Murphy (Detail 1) |
 |
| Painted after - "Landscape" by John Francis Murphy (Detail 2) |
Day Ninety Four: Hillside by John Francis Murphy
Hello welcome to Day 94 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is 'Hillside' by John Francis Murphy.
This is our last John Francis Murphy today, I saved one of the nicest studies for last. In today's video narration I read from the book A History of American Tonalism 1882-1920 by David A Cleveland, so please check that out.
Yesterday I was reading a very interesting post from a site called artrenewal.org. Artrenewal.org is a site that supports representational art and features the work of many artists throughout history as well as artists, it refers to as Living Masters. They run yearly competitions where they give prizes and they also have a large amount of imagery there. That is always been my predominant attraction to the site.
The article I was reading yesterday was very interesting. It was by a gentleman named Frederick Ross and the title of the article is 'Why Realism?'
I'm providing you with a link to the article here. It is very long and I cannot say that I agree with everything that Frederick says in it, however he makes some excellent points in regards to modern art. Those of you that have read this blog for any length of time will be aware that though there is some modern art that I enjoy, much of it I find odious, foul and an insult to the term art.
Here's a quotation from that article that I think is very pertinent to 'Modern art':
What Modernists have done has been to aid and abet the destruction of the only universal language by which artists can communicate our humanity to the rest of ...well humanity. It has been a goal of mine for many years to expose the truth of modernist art history, and it is very much on topic to bring into question any practice which purports to analyze art history in a way that deliberately suppresses a valid and correct understanding of what actually happened.
And it is of the utmost importance that the history of what actually took place not be lost for all time due to the transitory prejudice and tastes of a single era. This must be done if art history as a field of scholarship is not to be ultimately discovered to have devolved into nothing more than documents of propaganda; geared towards market enhancement for valuable collections passed down as wealth conserving stores of value.
Successful dealers, who derived great wealth by selling such works...works created in hours instead of weeks... had little trouble lining up articulate masters of our language to build complex jargon presented everywhere as brilliant analysis. These market influenced treatises ensured the financial protection of these collections.
Such "artspeak" as it has come to be known is a form of contrivance which uses self consciously complex and convoluted word combinations (babble) to impress, mesmerize and ultimately to silence the human instinct so that it cannot identify honestly what has been paraded before it.
This is accomplished by brainwashing through authority, confounding the evidence of our senses that otherwise any sane person would question. The "authority" of high positions, and the "authority" of books and print, and the "authority" of certificates of accreditation attached to the names of the chief proponents of modernism, have all conspired to impress and humble those whose common sense would rise up in opposition to what would have been evident nonsense if it had emanated from the mouths and pens of anyone without such a preponderance of "authority" backing them up.
Frederick Ross
Strong words from Frederick, but he's calling it the way he sees it and it's hard to disagree. Sad as it is, in today's art market words have replaced perception. Obfuscation has replaced lucidity and cleverness has replaced craft.
It doesn't have to be that way. I for one refuse to surrender my art to artifice. Every artist should be true to their own inner voice and guidance. The artwork that we leave behind speaks for us more than words ever could. And ultimately the work will speak louder than the 'artspeak' propaganda that supports so much mediocrity these days.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Hillside' by John Francis Murphy; this was such a fun study to do. I really got a lot out of working at the feet of the Master.
If you tune into today's video narration there is some excellent information provided by David A Cleveland about John Francis Murphy's later period and I highly recommend you check it out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Hillside by John Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
This is our last John Francis Murphy today, I saved one of the nicest studies for last. In today's video narration I read from the book A History of American Tonalism 1882-1920 by David A Cleveland, so please check that out.
Yesterday I was reading a very interesting post from a site called artrenewal.org. Artrenewal.org is a site that supports representational art and features the work of many artists throughout history as well as artists, it refers to as Living Masters. They run yearly competitions where they give prizes and they also have a large amount of imagery there. That is always been my predominant attraction to the site.
The article I was reading yesterday was very interesting. It was by a gentleman named Frederick Ross and the title of the article is 'Why Realism?'
I'm providing you with a link to the article here. It is very long and I cannot say that I agree with everything that Frederick says in it, however he makes some excellent points in regards to modern art. Those of you that have read this blog for any length of time will be aware that though there is some modern art that I enjoy, much of it I find odious, foul and an insult to the term art.
Here's a quotation from that article that I think is very pertinent to 'Modern art':
What Modernists have done has been to aid and abet the destruction of the only universal language by which artists can communicate our humanity to the rest of ...well humanity. It has been a goal of mine for many years to expose the truth of modernist art history, and it is very much on topic to bring into question any practice which purports to analyze art history in a way that deliberately suppresses a valid and correct understanding of what actually happened.
And it is of the utmost importance that the history of what actually took place not be lost for all time due to the transitory prejudice and tastes of a single era. This must be done if art history as a field of scholarship is not to be ultimately discovered to have devolved into nothing more than documents of propaganda; geared towards market enhancement for valuable collections passed down as wealth conserving stores of value.
Successful dealers, who derived great wealth by selling such works...works created in hours instead of weeks... had little trouble lining up articulate masters of our language to build complex jargon presented everywhere as brilliant analysis. These market influenced treatises ensured the financial protection of these collections.
Such "artspeak" as it has come to be known is a form of contrivance which uses self consciously complex and convoluted word combinations (babble) to impress, mesmerize and ultimately to silence the human instinct so that it cannot identify honestly what has been paraded before it.
This is accomplished by brainwashing through authority, confounding the evidence of our senses that otherwise any sane person would question. The "authority" of high positions, and the "authority" of books and print, and the "authority" of certificates of accreditation attached to the names of the chief proponents of modernism, have all conspired to impress and humble those whose common sense would rise up in opposition to what would have been evident nonsense if it had emanated from the mouths and pens of anyone without such a preponderance of "authority" backing them up.
Frederick Ross
Strong words from Frederick, but he's calling it the way he sees it and it's hard to disagree. Sad as it is, in today's art market words have replaced perception. Obfuscation has replaced lucidity and cleverness has replaced craft.
It doesn't have to be that way. I for one refuse to surrender my art to artifice. Every artist should be true to their own inner voice and guidance. The artwork that we leave behind speaks for us more than words ever could. And ultimately the work will speak louder than the 'artspeak' propaganda that supports so much mediocrity these days.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Hillside' by John Francis Murphy; this was such a fun study to do. I really got a lot out of working at the feet of the Master.
If you tune into today's video narration there is some excellent information provided by David A Cleveland about John Francis Murphy's later period and I highly recommend you check it out.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Hillside by John Francis Murphy |
Day Eighty Nine: Evening by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to Day 89 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is 'Evening' by John Francis Murphy.
Those of you that have been following this blog will be well aware of John Francis Murphy by this point. We've done several studies after his paintings and he was one of the greatest Tonalist painters that ever picked up a brush. In today's video narration, I've read some biographical information about Murphy from the book, A History of American Tonalism 1882 to 1920 by David A Cleveland, so please check out the video.
Yesterday we were talking about my history as an artist and Tonalist landscape painter. Specifically, we were talking about color and how my approach to color has evolved as my sensitivity has expanded and experience been gained. Today I like to talk about how my approach to values has evolved.
My history as a pen and ink artist and later as a commercial artist involved in creating illustrations for various projects, really honed my understanding and approach to values in my art. Especially the work I did for screen printing reproduction, as in many cases I had very few colors to work with, so values would have to tell the story much more than color. Strong attention to values has informed my approach as a landscape painter from the very beginning.
When I first started doing landscape paintings I would mostly duplicate the value structure in my photographic reference, making small modifications aesthetically as I saw fit. After being introduced to Tonalism and really wanting to modify what I was doing into that artistic language I began by clipping the value range of my paintings. If you were to visualize a gray scale from 1 to 10, one being the darkest and ten the lightest, I would have moved from a scale like that to a scale more like 1 to 7 with seven being the lightest.
This removed quite a lot of contrast from my work that was present previously, One of the hallmarks of Tonalism is that a lot of Tonalist paintings eschew strong contrasts. Many of them are scenes of very early in the morning, overcast days, twilight and dusk scenes or nocturnes. Although I got some good results in my earliest attempts at painting in the tonal manner, I think I went a little too far with the lack of contrast. If you compare the work I was doing about five years ago with what I'm doing now, this is one of the main things that would stand out.
These days I tend to want to accentuate at least a few points in the painting with stronger light values. Normally this will be in the sky and quite often I will put the focus up against a dark vertical tree area.
I was very much influenced in this regard by my trip to the Louvre in Paris in 2012. I noticed when I was there that many of the landscape paintings were quite dark overall. However, another thing I noticed was that even if a painting was almost completely dark, was that the Masters would almost always put an area of extreme brightness in their paintings.
Having an area of strong contrasting light creates a lot more interest and excitement in the picture. After learning this firsthand by viewing the works of Master painters I incorporated that knowledge into my own painting.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening' by John Francis Murphy; this is one of my favorite studies out of all of the hundred days. I love the subdued olive toned greens that contrast with subtle violets, mauve tones and pearlescent grays. I'm very happy with the way my study turned out and I learned a lot by making a study after John Francis Murphy's awesome painting.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Evening by John Francis Murphy , Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Today's study is 'Evening' by John Francis Murphy.
Those of you that have been following this blog will be well aware of John Francis Murphy by this point. We've done several studies after his paintings and he was one of the greatest Tonalist painters that ever picked up a brush. In today's video narration, I've read some biographical information about Murphy from the book, A History of American Tonalism 1882 to 1920 by David A Cleveland, so please check out the video.
Yesterday we were talking about my history as an artist and Tonalist landscape painter. Specifically, we were talking about color and how my approach to color has evolved as my sensitivity has expanded and experience been gained. Today I like to talk about how my approach to values has evolved.
My history as a pen and ink artist and later as a commercial artist involved in creating illustrations for various projects, really honed my understanding and approach to values in my art. Especially the work I did for screen printing reproduction, as in many cases I had very few colors to work with, so values would have to tell the story much more than color. Strong attention to values has informed my approach as a landscape painter from the very beginning.
When I first started doing landscape paintings I would mostly duplicate the value structure in my photographic reference, making small modifications aesthetically as I saw fit. After being introduced to Tonalism and really wanting to modify what I was doing into that artistic language I began by clipping the value range of my paintings. If you were to visualize a gray scale from 1 to 10, one being the darkest and ten the lightest, I would have moved from a scale like that to a scale more like 1 to 7 with seven being the lightest.
This removed quite a lot of contrast from my work that was present previously, One of the hallmarks of Tonalism is that a lot of Tonalist paintings eschew strong contrasts. Many of them are scenes of very early in the morning, overcast days, twilight and dusk scenes or nocturnes. Although I got some good results in my earliest attempts at painting in the tonal manner, I think I went a little too far with the lack of contrast. If you compare the work I was doing about five years ago with what I'm doing now, this is one of the main things that would stand out.
These days I tend to want to accentuate at least a few points in the painting with stronger light values. Normally this will be in the sky and quite often I will put the focus up against a dark vertical tree area.
I was very much influenced in this regard by my trip to the Louvre in Paris in 2012. I noticed when I was there that many of the landscape paintings were quite dark overall. However, another thing I noticed was that even if a painting was almost completely dark, was that the Masters would almost always put an area of extreme brightness in their paintings.
Having an area of strong contrasting light creates a lot more interest and excitement in the picture. After learning this firsthand by viewing the works of Master painters I incorporated that knowledge into my own painting.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening' by John Francis Murphy; this is one of my favorite studies out of all of the hundred days. I love the subdued olive toned greens that contrast with subtle violets, mauve tones and pearlescent grays. I'm very happy with the way my study turned out and I learned a lot by making a study after John Francis Murphy's awesome painting.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Evening by John Francis Murphy |
Day Eighty Two: Evening by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 82 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is Evening by John Francis Murphy.
Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will be well aware of Francis Murphy by now. We've done many studies of some of his best paintings. In today's video narration I will be discussing some biographical information about John Francis Murphy from the book a History of American Tonalism by David Cleveland so check that out.
We've been talking for the last week about my progression as an artist into becoming a landscape painter and about my earliest days of painting. We're going to continue on with that discussion today. I was working along in my sort of Impressionist style quite happily in those early days. I had discovered painting on wood panels as opposed to canvas and I was also experimenting with different types of painting mediums.
One of the mediums that I tried early on was Galkyd by Gamblin. This medium is quite a bit thinner than Liquin and also produced a glossier finish. I am not a fan of the glossy finish, also there were a few paintings I did with this medium where upon close inspection there were tiny bubbles in my painting. Definitely not an effect size I found desirable. Others, I guess, have better results with Galkyd .
I eventually settled on using Liquin as my primary medium. These days I use a medium made by Archival called Odorless Lean. I'm not sure if this medium is available in the US or not as it is made in Australia. This is a very liquid type of medium that gives me good paint movement and is also very fast drying period, it also has the big advantage of being far cheaper than Liquin.
While I was in the process of doing all these early paintings I was researching books and also online. There is a site called Wet Canvas. They have a forum with a good range of artists there from absolute amateurs to those with a lot of experience. I did learn some things from reading their forum. I was surprised to seet how involved people were with their materials especially their painting mediums.
A lot of amateur artists believe that the right materials are somehow magically going to help them create professional quality work. While it's true that using crappy paint or shoddy mediums on inferior substrates will make it a struggle to create a good painting, it is still possible. The opposite is not true however, you can have the most expensive paint, the finest mediums and be working on the priciest linen is still produce terrible amateurish work. As with anything else difficult to accomplish the way to improve your painting is to create a lot of paintings. There is no real shortcuts.
Tomorrow I'm going to talk a bit about my transition from a semi Impressionist into a Tonalist painter so stay tuned for that.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Evening by John Francis Murphy; this painting is a great example of Tonalism in its purest form. There are many different paintings that can fit into the category of Tonalism but I would put this particular work right in the center of that range.
I really enjoyed doing this study. As I have enjoyed doing studies of all of the John Francis Murphy paintings in this series. Of all the painters that we have covered in the series I would have to say that I resonate the most as an artist with John Francis Murphy.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Evening by John Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will be well aware of Francis Murphy by now. We've done many studies of some of his best paintings. In today's video narration I will be discussing some biographical information about John Francis Murphy from the book a History of American Tonalism by David Cleveland so check that out.
We've been talking for the last week about my progression as an artist into becoming a landscape painter and about my earliest days of painting. We're going to continue on with that discussion today. I was working along in my sort of Impressionist style quite happily in those early days. I had discovered painting on wood panels as opposed to canvas and I was also experimenting with different types of painting mediums.
One of the mediums that I tried early on was Galkyd by Gamblin. This medium is quite a bit thinner than Liquin and also produced a glossier finish. I am not a fan of the glossy finish, also there were a few paintings I did with this medium where upon close inspection there were tiny bubbles in my painting. Definitely not an effect size I found desirable. Others, I guess, have better results with Galkyd .
I eventually settled on using Liquin as my primary medium. These days I use a medium made by Archival called Odorless Lean. I'm not sure if this medium is available in the US or not as it is made in Australia. This is a very liquid type of medium that gives me good paint movement and is also very fast drying period, it also has the big advantage of being far cheaper than Liquin.
While I was in the process of doing all these early paintings I was researching books and also online. There is a site called Wet Canvas. They have a forum with a good range of artists there from absolute amateurs to those with a lot of experience. I did learn some things from reading their forum. I was surprised to seet how involved people were with their materials especially their painting mediums.
A lot of amateur artists believe that the right materials are somehow magically going to help them create professional quality work. While it's true that using crappy paint or shoddy mediums on inferior substrates will make it a struggle to create a good painting, it is still possible. The opposite is not true however, you can have the most expensive paint, the finest mediums and be working on the priciest linen is still produce terrible amateurish work. As with anything else difficult to accomplish the way to improve your painting is to create a lot of paintings. There is no real shortcuts.
Tomorrow I'm going to talk a bit about my transition from a semi Impressionist into a Tonalist painter so stay tuned for that.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Evening by John Francis Murphy; this painting is a great example of Tonalism in its purest form. There are many different paintings that can fit into the category of Tonalism but I would put this particular work right in the center of that range.
I really enjoyed doing this study. As I have enjoyed doing studies of all of the John Francis Murphy paintings in this series. Of all the painters that we have covered in the series I would have to say that I resonate the most as an artist with John Francis Murphy.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Evening by John Francis Murphy |
Day Seventy: A Stormy Day by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 70 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is of 'A Stormy Day' by John Francis Murphy.
This painting by Murphy is awesome, one of my all-time favorites. I was excited to try my hand at doing a study. I will be reading some biographical information about John Francis Murphy from the book A History of American Tonalism by David Cleveland on today's video narrations, so please check that out.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; I think we've covered the first color pass pretty well. This has been an overview and not a thorough in-depth analysis that I've been serializing in these blog posts. I have got into some good detail here and there in regards to my process and approach to painting. There's more to come as we go into the 2nd color stage over the next week.
Today I'd like to just talk about painting wet into wet since this is the main thing that distinguishes the first color pass from the second (and all of the related techniques and ways of applying paint). Many painters favor doing their entire paintings wet on wet this is referred to as painting Alla Prima. I believe that Alla Prima means 'all at once' in Italian.
There is an excellent book by Richard Schmid called Alla Prima that I have referenced on this blog in the past. Richard is one of the best landscape painters living and though, I would not consider him to be a Tonalist, he certainly understands what Tonalism is and how to do it. The reason I bring Richard Schmid up here, is that he is the preeminent Alla Prima painter, in that he paints almost entirely wet on wet. This book has some awesome chapters and instruction in painting with oils. I highly recommend purchasing it.
Getting back to my first color pass and painting wet into wet. You can get wonderful effects, blending, striations and modulations of color by working with wet paint into wet paint that could not be accomplished any other way. One of the wonderful things about working with oil paint, is that it stays quite wet on the painting until it is dry the next day. There is a certain characteristic to paintings done this way that is distinctive.
I enjoy working wet on wet and I always endeavor to make the painting as good as possible in the first color pass. There are times that I will hold back knowing that I will be doing a second color pass. I will hold off on putting in the lightest tones or, wait to paint certain passages that will require a lot of light over dark or dark over light painting.
Tomorrow we will start talking about my second color pass and getting into some of the techniques that I utilize to bring my painting to a nice finish.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'A Stormy Day' by John Francis Murphy; as I stated above this is one of my favorite paintings by J Francis Murphy. I love how dark, emotional and intense this painting is. His use of rich auburn reds and an entire range of interesting grays is masterful.
I spent some time in the second color pass of this study doing some textural work. This is something that J Francis Murphy was famous for and, I believe that this painting of his could be the pinnacle of his textural approach.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - A Stormy Day by John Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood pane |
This painting by Murphy is awesome, one of my all-time favorites. I was excited to try my hand at doing a study. I will be reading some biographical information about John Francis Murphy from the book A History of American Tonalism by David Cleveland on today's video narrations, so please check that out.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; I think we've covered the first color pass pretty well. This has been an overview and not a thorough in-depth analysis that I've been serializing in these blog posts. I have got into some good detail here and there in regards to my process and approach to painting. There's more to come as we go into the 2nd color stage over the next week.
Today I'd like to just talk about painting wet into wet since this is the main thing that distinguishes the first color pass from the second (and all of the related techniques and ways of applying paint). Many painters favor doing their entire paintings wet on wet this is referred to as painting Alla Prima. I believe that Alla Prima means 'all at once' in Italian.
There is an excellent book by Richard Schmid called Alla Prima that I have referenced on this blog in the past. Richard is one of the best landscape painters living and though, I would not consider him to be a Tonalist, he certainly understands what Tonalism is and how to do it. The reason I bring Richard Schmid up here, is that he is the preeminent Alla Prima painter, in that he paints almost entirely wet on wet. This book has some awesome chapters and instruction in painting with oils. I highly recommend purchasing it.
Getting back to my first color pass and painting wet into wet. You can get wonderful effects, blending, striations and modulations of color by working with wet paint into wet paint that could not be accomplished any other way. One of the wonderful things about working with oil paint, is that it stays quite wet on the painting until it is dry the next day. There is a certain characteristic to paintings done this way that is distinctive.
I enjoy working wet on wet and I always endeavor to make the painting as good as possible in the first color pass. There are times that I will hold back knowing that I will be doing a second color pass. I will hold off on putting in the lightest tones or, wait to paint certain passages that will require a lot of light over dark or dark over light painting.
Tomorrow we will start talking about my second color pass and getting into some of the techniques that I utilize to bring my painting to a nice finish.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'A Stormy Day' by John Francis Murphy; as I stated above this is one of my favorite paintings by J Francis Murphy. I love how dark, emotional and intense this painting is. His use of rich auburn reds and an entire range of interesting grays is masterful.
I spent some time in the second color pass of this study doing some textural work. This is something that J Francis Murphy was famous for and, I believe that this painting of his could be the pinnacle of his textural approach.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, A Stormy Day by John Francis Murphy |
Day Sixty Seven: An Autumn Landscape by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 67 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is of 'An Autumn Landscape' by John Francis Murphy.
This is a very interesting picture by Murphy and different from most of his that I've seen. The reference image that I have is very tiny. I was unable to find a larger version of this painting online. The nice thing about my digital photo frame set up, is that when I use it as my painting reference it works fine with very lo-res images. Not to mention that at the small-scale that I'm painting in this series, I'm not able to do a lot of detail anyway.
I will be reading some great information about John Francis Murphy from the book A History of American Tonalism on today's video so please check that out.
Over the last two days we been discussing my Tonalist painting process in regards to a paintings first color pass. We've covered the sky and yesterday we talked about trees, today were going to discuss everything else. Namely, what I've been referring to as the ground plane. This would be assorted roads, bushes, hills and whatnot.
To tell you the truth I tend to start painting a lot of these elements as I am working on the trees. If there is a color in another part of the landscape that corresponds to the paint color that I've mixed for an area in the trees then I will start working that in. I do focus on getting the trees (knocked in where they overlap the sky) done as soon as possible.
One thing I didn't mention about trees yesterday was how I like to mix a color for the actual edges of the trees that is really a combination of the sky color and the lightest tree color.This is basically giving me a soft edge without blending.
Continuing on with my first color pass; if there is a road in the painting, many times I will paint this at the same time as I paint the sky. The colors of the road usually correspond to the colors in the sky, although I may have to mix in more yellows and earth colors.
Finishing up, I will do the lightest grasses and lightest areas in any bushes as well as painting rocks and other earth type formations. If there are hills in the scene I will definitely paint them in a way so that they merge with the sky. I think it's important to establish a sense of aerial perspective by lightening and obfuscating forms in the distance.
I've been trying to break down my painting process as much as possible so I can relate it to you in a serial manner.Tomorrow I will be discussing edges in painting. This is a topic that deserves its own blog post as it is often times one of the big differences between a professional and amateur painter.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'An Autumn Landscape' by John Francis Murphy; this painting has some very interesting shapes in the trees. It took me until the second color pass to get them down.
I'm pretty happy with the way the study turned out. The panel in this particular painting showed a bit bit more wood grain than my panels usually have. Sometimes this can detract but in the case of this study I think it works well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Autumn Landscape by John Francis Murphy , Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
This is a very interesting picture by Murphy and different from most of his that I've seen. The reference image that I have is very tiny. I was unable to find a larger version of this painting online. The nice thing about my digital photo frame set up, is that when I use it as my painting reference it works fine with very lo-res images. Not to mention that at the small-scale that I'm painting in this series, I'm not able to do a lot of detail anyway.
I will be reading some great information about John Francis Murphy from the book A History of American Tonalism on today's video so please check that out.
Over the last two days we been discussing my Tonalist painting process in regards to a paintings first color pass. We've covered the sky and yesterday we talked about trees, today were going to discuss everything else. Namely, what I've been referring to as the ground plane. This would be assorted roads, bushes, hills and whatnot.
To tell you the truth I tend to start painting a lot of these elements as I am working on the trees. If there is a color in another part of the landscape that corresponds to the paint color that I've mixed for an area in the trees then I will start working that in. I do focus on getting the trees (knocked in where they overlap the sky) done as soon as possible.
One thing I didn't mention about trees yesterday was how I like to mix a color for the actual edges of the trees that is really a combination of the sky color and the lightest tree color.This is basically giving me a soft edge without blending.
Continuing on with my first color pass; if there is a road in the painting, many times I will paint this at the same time as I paint the sky. The colors of the road usually correspond to the colors in the sky, although I may have to mix in more yellows and earth colors.
Finishing up, I will do the lightest grasses and lightest areas in any bushes as well as painting rocks and other earth type formations. If there are hills in the scene I will definitely paint them in a way so that they merge with the sky. I think it's important to establish a sense of aerial perspective by lightening and obfuscating forms in the distance.
I've been trying to break down my painting process as much as possible so I can relate it to you in a serial manner.Tomorrow I will be discussing edges in painting. This is a topic that deserves its own blog post as it is often times one of the big differences between a professional and amateur painter.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'An Autumn Landscape' by John Francis Murphy; this painting has some very interesting shapes in the trees. It took me until the second color pass to get them down.
I'm pretty happy with the way the study turned out. The panel in this particular painting showed a bit bit more wood grain than my panels usually have. Sometimes this can detract but in the case of this study I think it works well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, An Autumn Landscape by John Francis Murphy |
Day Sixty Three: Afternoon Light by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 63 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today study is 'Afternoon Light' by John Francis Murphy.
An awesome painting by John Francis Murphy today. Seems like we've had quite a lot of Murphy lately. That's okay, because he's amazing. I will be reading some biographical information about John Francis Murphy in today's video narration from the book A History of American Tonalism 1880 to 1920.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; today I would like to discuss brush technique. As I indicated yesterday it is desirable to use a brush slightly larger than what is comfortable to casually paint with, bigger is better. This gives you more expressive brush strokes. The word 'brushstrokes' is actually somewhat misleading, since there are so many ways you can apply paint to your surface. You can blop it, streak it, daub it, rub it on with a paper towel and, of course you can brush it on with a brush.
It's important to use your brush to accomplish all of these different ways of getting paint onto the panel not just using the brush as a brush. One good way to achieve this is by alternating the way that you are holding your brush regularly while doing your painting. This is a process that is highly intuitive,actually this process could be the most intuitive aspect of painting. Good brush manipulation starts with the desire to be open to using your brush in different ways. Once that is accomplished you need to listen for that interior voice while working and to follow its impetus.
I know I've mentioned the intuitive approach before, but I cannot stress enough how important the intuition is to doing a good painting. Paintings that are done strictly from the intellect tend to be very stiff and lacking in emotion. The primary way to get emotion into your work is through brushwork, and the primary way to have interesting and varied brushwork is by using your intuition to know when to change up the brush.
Intuition is active and vital to so many parts of the painting process. For example: modifying colors, changing the sizing of your brush, direction of your brush strokes and knowing when to stop working, are predominantly functions of the intuition.
It's easy to fly, but to fly well you need to earn your wings and the same is very true of utilizing intuition in the painting process. You must work and practice your art often for that intuition to have an apt vehicle of expression. Waiting for a bolt of inspiration to strike you and suddenly produce a masterpiece is generally not a good idea.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Afternoon Light' by John Francis Murphy; this painting is so moody and evocative. I really love it.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about doing this study was painting the red in the trees. Also John Francis Murphy is a Master of getting an interesting ground plane in all of his work. The interaction between the greens over the reds is what makes his painting so rich.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Afternoon Light by John Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
An awesome painting by John Francis Murphy today. Seems like we've had quite a lot of Murphy lately. That's okay, because he's amazing. I will be reading some biographical information about John Francis Murphy in today's video narration from the book A History of American Tonalism 1880 to 1920.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; today I would like to discuss brush technique. As I indicated yesterday it is desirable to use a brush slightly larger than what is comfortable to casually paint with, bigger is better. This gives you more expressive brush strokes. The word 'brushstrokes' is actually somewhat misleading, since there are so many ways you can apply paint to your surface. You can blop it, streak it, daub it, rub it on with a paper towel and, of course you can brush it on with a brush.
It's important to use your brush to accomplish all of these different ways of getting paint onto the panel not just using the brush as a brush. One good way to achieve this is by alternating the way that you are holding your brush regularly while doing your painting. This is a process that is highly intuitive,actually this process could be the most intuitive aspect of painting. Good brush manipulation starts with the desire to be open to using your brush in different ways. Once that is accomplished you need to listen for that interior voice while working and to follow its impetus.
I know I've mentioned the intuitive approach before, but I cannot stress enough how important the intuition is to doing a good painting. Paintings that are done strictly from the intellect tend to be very stiff and lacking in emotion. The primary way to get emotion into your work is through brushwork, and the primary way to have interesting and varied brushwork is by using your intuition to know when to change up the brush.
Intuition is active and vital to so many parts of the painting process. For example: modifying colors, changing the sizing of your brush, direction of your brush strokes and knowing when to stop working, are predominantly functions of the intuition.
It's easy to fly, but to fly well you need to earn your wings and the same is very true of utilizing intuition in the painting process. You must work and practice your art often for that intuition to have an apt vehicle of expression. Waiting for a bolt of inspiration to strike you and suddenly produce a masterpiece is generally not a good idea.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Afternoon Light' by John Francis Murphy; this painting is so moody and evocative. I really love it.
One of the things that I enjoyed the most about doing this study was painting the red in the trees. Also John Francis Murphy is a Master of getting an interesting ground plane in all of his work. The interaction between the greens over the reds is what makes his painting so rich.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Afternoon Light by John Francis Murphy |
Day Sixty: Late Autumn Afternoon by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 60 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is 'Late Autumn Afternoon' by John Francis Murphy.
It's not often we have the same artist two days in a row here. The reason for this, today, is that I had accidentally duplicated a painting by George Inness called 'Sunrise' that we covered earlier in this series. It was actually yesterday's painting 'Landscape' by John Francis Murphy that was the substitution I had been planning on doing a study of this painting from the start.
Yesterday we were reading some good stuff about Murphy from the book American Tonalism 1880 1920 David Cleveland. For today's video narration I will continue where I left off yesterday, as we were already discussing John Francis Murphy. So be sure to check out the video.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; we've spent the last three days talking about the colors on my palette. I had not intended to spend so long on pigments, but this blog being an organic process, it seems to me like time well spent. After all, without paint you really can't do much painting!
Today I'd like to discuss pre-mixing colors prior to starting a painting. For the first color pass, I like to premix the major colors for the painting I am getting ready to do. This is not absolutely necessary, I could just mix as I go but I feel that premixing has several advantages:
Having the major colors premixed is an extension of my philosophy of allowing parts of the painting process to carry you along, while allowing intuition more free reign. It's very important that painting be a nearly equal process between conscious and unconscious decisions, between thinking and feeling.
There's no question that while premixing I'm primarily thinking. However many times while using these mixtures while actually doing the painting, I will amend and adjust the premixed colors intuitively. This is all part of the back-and-forth, and give and take of my workflow.
The amount of color that I premix is definitely influenced by the size of the painting I'm doing. If I'm doing a 5x7 I need far less paint than when doing a 12x16.
Some contemporary artists do premixing, though I think these days most prefer to mix their colors as they go. The mix as you go method is definitely more Impressionistic. One of the main influencers of the Tonalist painting movement was James McNeill Whistler. He not only had his colors premixed but he had extended strings of each color from dark to light value. This is totally in keeping with a more classical approach to oil painting.
Tomorrow I'm going to discuss scraping down peaks on my paintings at various stages during the paintings progression. So be sure to come back and check that out.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Late Autumn Afternoon' by John Francis Murphy; while this painting is classic John Francis Murphy I feel that it shows a strong influence of George Inness, especially in the composition. This type of composition is called a seesaw because you have two opposing elements one on the left and one on the right. Generally speaking, it's advantageous to have one element larger than the other. If both elements are the same size the painting will be too static and it will not have a clear point of interest.
I enjoyed painting the warm sky and the deep reds and greens of the ground for this study. John Francis Murphy was very good at capturing an emotional quality in his work and that is a trait of his that I endeavor to emulate in my own.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 | |
|
It's not often we have the same artist two days in a row here. The reason for this, today, is that I had accidentally duplicated a painting by George Inness called 'Sunrise' that we covered earlier in this series. It was actually yesterday's painting 'Landscape' by John Francis Murphy that was the substitution I had been planning on doing a study of this painting from the start.
Yesterday we were reading some good stuff about Murphy from the book American Tonalism 1880 1920 David Cleveland. For today's video narration I will continue where I left off yesterday, as we were already discussing John Francis Murphy. So be sure to check out the video.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my Tonalist painting process; we've spent the last three days talking about the colors on my palette. I had not intended to spend so long on pigments, but this blog being an organic process, it seems to me like time well spent. After all, without paint you really can't do much painting!
Today I'd like to discuss pre-mixing colors prior to starting a painting. For the first color pass, I like to premix the major colors for the painting I am getting ready to do. This is not absolutely necessary, I could just mix as I go but I feel that premixing has several advantages:
- With my colors premixed on my palette before I go to lunch, I'm more likely to come back to the studio after lunch and complete that painting or risk wasting the mixtures sitting on my palette.
- Premixing my colors gives me an opportunity to get an overview of the major colors in the painting prior to actually jumping in with my brush.
- Having the major colors premixed, gives me a certain amount of momentum while painting (sort of like, set them up and knock them down).
Having the major colors premixed is an extension of my philosophy of allowing parts of the painting process to carry you along, while allowing intuition more free reign. It's very important that painting be a nearly equal process between conscious and unconscious decisions, between thinking and feeling.
There's no question that while premixing I'm primarily thinking. However many times while using these mixtures while actually doing the painting, I will amend and adjust the premixed colors intuitively. This is all part of the back-and-forth, and give and take of my workflow.
The amount of color that I premix is definitely influenced by the size of the painting I'm doing. If I'm doing a 5x7 I need far less paint than when doing a 12x16.
Some contemporary artists do premixing, though I think these days most prefer to mix their colors as they go. The mix as you go method is definitely more Impressionistic. One of the main influencers of the Tonalist painting movement was James McNeill Whistler. He not only had his colors premixed but he had extended strings of each color from dark to light value. This is totally in keeping with a more classical approach to oil painting.
Tomorrow I'm going to discuss scraping down peaks on my paintings at various stages during the paintings progression. So be sure to come back and check that out.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Late Autumn Afternoon' by John Francis Murphy; while this painting is classic John Francis Murphy I feel that it shows a strong influence of George Inness, especially in the composition. This type of composition is called a seesaw because you have two opposing elements one on the left and one on the right. Generally speaking, it's advantageous to have one element larger than the other. If both elements are the same size the painting will be too static and it will not have a clear point of interest.
I enjoyed painting the warm sky and the deep reds and greens of the ground for this study. John Francis Murphy was very good at capturing an emotional quality in his work and that is a trait of his that I endeavor to emulate in my own.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Late Autumn Afternoon by John Francis Murphy |
Day Fifty Nine: Landscape by John Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 59 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is 'Landscape' by John Francis Murphy.
Those of you that have been following this blog will be no stranger to John Francis Murphy by now. He is one of my favorite all-time painters and a pre-eminent Tonalist. I will be reading some biographical information about Murphy from my copy of A History of American Tonalism on today's video narration so please check that out.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my own Tonalist painting process; for the last several days we've been discussing my color palette and it's progression since I started painting. Today I'd like to discuss the secondary colors that I've added through the years to supplement my core palette.
Working from right to left, the first color that I'll mention is, transparent earth yellow by Gamblin. This is an very flexible color that is basically like yellow ocher but is completely non-opaque. It has a decent amount of tinting strength and I really like using it for glazing.
Continuing towards the left side of my palette, next is raw umber. Raw umber is a color that I've added quite recently and like the ivory black that I was talking about yesterday, I use it as a color killer. In the case of raw umber it tends to knock the intense chroma off of colors, but is far more warm than ivory black which is very cool in nature.
The next color working towards the left side is green gold. This is a color that I got a tube of several months ago and it is produced by Gamblin. Is very similar to a green that I mix using cadmium yellow (hue) and black.The tube version is far less opaque and has less covering power than my own mixed version. I do not have green gold on my palette at the moment because I tried a replacement tube from another paint manufacturer and found it to be so weak in strength that I had to throw in away. For the moment I am mixing my own in a fairly decent quantity and putting that on my palette in green golds place.
Moving to the left, next is cadmium orange (hue). I added cadmium orange (hue) about a year and a half ago and I find it very useful especially for mixing with blue to get warm complementary grays in the sky.
Right next to to cadmium orange (hue) is cadmium red (hue). This is a color that I use infrequently but I will use it to dull down a strong green or to move a green color towards a more complimentary feeling. It is so bright, and so red that I seldom use it on its own in a painting.
The next secondary color that I'd like to discuss is permanent green light. This is a very bright and light green color that I use infrequently. I find it useful for pushing other colors that I have already mixed into subtle green tones. It is quite weak in tinting strength, but this is actually a factor that makes it easier to use. It's not a color that I would ever use straight up. On its own I would describe it as a poison looking green.
Continuing to the left, the next color is cobalt violet (hue). This is a color I use infrequently but it is very handy for injecting a bit of purple into a sky or into shadow areas of the landscape. Cobalt violet (hue) is not very strong. This is actually not a bad thing since I'm generally using it for subtle applications.
Continuing on to the left, our next secondary color is cerulean blue. I added this color about six months ago. I can get by without this color very easily by just using cobalt blue with a touch of black and white. However it has some interesting differences in that it is less strong and more chalky than cobalt blue. I don't mind a bit of chalkiness in the sky. Another thing that makes cerulean so useful is that it is very close to a straight up sky-blue. It is a color that I tend to grab and use while painting the sky as opposed to using in the pre-mixtures that I do prior to a painting session.
The next secondary color is phthalo blue. Phthalo blue has very strong tinting strength and is also quite transparent. It has the added benefit of being a very reasonable pigment. I phthalo blue because it is a cool blue and contrasts with cobalt blue which is more of a warm blue. With these two blues and black I can do almost any blue tone that I would ever need.
The last color on our list all the way on the left of my palette is torrit gray. As I discussed in our first blog post regarding my color palette, this is a Gamblin color that is manufactured from all of the pigments collected from their filtration system. It is a different gray every year. This is not a color that can actually be purchased. It is generally given to you by the art store when you buy several tubes of other Gamblin pigments. I got a tube a month or two ago, and I find it very useful because it is quite close to a 50% gray. When I run out I will probably just makes a little pile of gray in its place.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about "Landscape' by John Francis Murphy; I really love doing studies of Murphy's paintings. Of all of the Tonalist painters he is probably the one I relate to the most. I may love George Inness better but his painting is more esoteric.
What I enjoyed most about this study was painting the warm yellows and grays in the sky and then doing the ground with greens washed over my burnt sienna underpainting. This is a technique that I've utilize quite a lot in this series to good effect.
 | |
|
Those of you that have been following this blog will be no stranger to John Francis Murphy by now. He is one of my favorite all-time painters and a pre-eminent Tonalist. I will be reading some biographical information about Murphy from my copy of A History of American Tonalism on today's video narration so please check that out.
Continuing on with our current assay regarding my own Tonalist painting process; for the last several days we've been discussing my color palette and it's progression since I started painting. Today I'd like to discuss the secondary colors that I've added through the years to supplement my core palette.
Working from right to left, the first color that I'll mention is, transparent earth yellow by Gamblin. This is an very flexible color that is basically like yellow ocher but is completely non-opaque. It has a decent amount of tinting strength and I really like using it for glazing.
Continuing towards the left side of my palette, next is raw umber. Raw umber is a color that I've added quite recently and like the ivory black that I was talking about yesterday, I use it as a color killer. In the case of raw umber it tends to knock the intense chroma off of colors, but is far more warm than ivory black which is very cool in nature.
The next color working towards the left side is green gold. This is a color that I got a tube of several months ago and it is produced by Gamblin. Is very similar to a green that I mix using cadmium yellow (hue) and black.The tube version is far less opaque and has less covering power than my own mixed version. I do not have green gold on my palette at the moment because I tried a replacement tube from another paint manufacturer and found it to be so weak in strength that I had to throw in away. For the moment I am mixing my own in a fairly decent quantity and putting that on my palette in green golds place.
Moving to the left, next is cadmium orange (hue). I added cadmium orange (hue) about a year and a half ago and I find it very useful especially for mixing with blue to get warm complementary grays in the sky.
Right next to to cadmium orange (hue) is cadmium red (hue). This is a color that I use infrequently but I will use it to dull down a strong green or to move a green color towards a more complimentary feeling. It is so bright, and so red that I seldom use it on its own in a painting.
The next secondary color that I'd like to discuss is permanent green light. This is a very bright and light green color that I use infrequently. I find it useful for pushing other colors that I have already mixed into subtle green tones. It is quite weak in tinting strength, but this is actually a factor that makes it easier to use. It's not a color that I would ever use straight up. On its own I would describe it as a poison looking green.
Continuing to the left, the next color is cobalt violet (hue). This is a color I use infrequently but it is very handy for injecting a bit of purple into a sky or into shadow areas of the landscape. Cobalt violet (hue) is not very strong. This is actually not a bad thing since I'm generally using it for subtle applications.
Continuing on to the left, our next secondary color is cerulean blue. I added this color about six months ago. I can get by without this color very easily by just using cobalt blue with a touch of black and white. However it has some interesting differences in that it is less strong and more chalky than cobalt blue. I don't mind a bit of chalkiness in the sky. Another thing that makes cerulean so useful is that it is very close to a straight up sky-blue. It is a color that I tend to grab and use while painting the sky as opposed to using in the pre-mixtures that I do prior to a painting session.
The next secondary color is phthalo blue. Phthalo blue has very strong tinting strength and is also quite transparent. It has the added benefit of being a very reasonable pigment. I phthalo blue because it is a cool blue and contrasts with cobalt blue which is more of a warm blue. With these two blues and black I can do almost any blue tone that I would ever need.
The last color on our list all the way on the left of my palette is torrit gray. As I discussed in our first blog post regarding my color palette, this is a Gamblin color that is manufactured from all of the pigments collected from their filtration system. It is a different gray every year. This is not a color that can actually be purchased. It is generally given to you by the art store when you buy several tubes of other Gamblin pigments. I got a tube a month or two ago, and I find it very useful because it is quite close to a 50% gray. When I run out I will probably just makes a little pile of gray in its place.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about "Landscape' by John Francis Murphy; I really love doing studies of Murphy's paintings. Of all of the Tonalist painters he is probably the one I relate to the most. I may love George Inness better but his painting is more esoteric.
What I enjoyed most about this study was painting the warm yellows and grays in the sky and then doing the ground with greens washed over my burnt sienna underpainting. This is a technique that I've utilize quite a lot in this series to good effect.
Day Sixteen: Homestead by J Francis Murphy
Hello and welcome to day 16 of 100 days of tonalism.
Painted after - Homestead by J Francis Murphy, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel
Today's study is of 'Homestead' by J Francis Murphy.
At LAST we've arrived at a painting by J Francis Murphy! J Francis is one of my favorite all-time landscape painters and his work has been a big influence on my own painting.
In today's video I've read some biographical information from the site artsy so I will leave off from that here. J Francis is really an artist that I need to learn more about. I believe he is covered in the book; "a history of American tonalism" I haven't got to the section that mentions second-generation tonalists yet.
This work is very moving and moody. A trait that some of his work shares with George Inness. I ended up inserting this particular image because I had run into a issue of duplicate imagery even at this early stage in the series. By the way the reference that I got off the Internet is very tiny and lacking in detail. This was not overly bothersome since I'm working at the small size of 5 x 7," it would be more of an issue if I was working larger.
One of the great things about doing all of the studies in a small format, is that there are quite a few paintings that I only had very small reference images of. As a sidenote; this is the first series of paintings that I've done where I did not actually print out my reference imagery but instead used a digital photo frame. I really love working with that frame now and it's saving me a lot of money on ink and paper.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Homestead' by J Francis Murphy. There's a lot going on in this painting. I imagine the original is quite a bit more complex than my simplified study. I was attracted to the intense red color in the trees which is mirrored on the ground. J Francis Murphy was an excellent painter of ground as you will note in his paintings and gets varied tones and textures there.
I'm quite happy with the way that this study turned out although I was a bit trepidatious at first due to its apparent complexity. As with most subjects I pursue, I just threw myself into the work and got after it. Notice that this painting has an interesting juxtaposition between greens and reds. It is a very complementary color scheme that is offset by the neutral sky. J Francis' sky is more neutral than the one I created but I felt I had to inject some additional color.
You never actually know what you're dealing with when you are working off images from the Internet. Also many paintings have been varnished and they tend to yellow over time.
To see more of my work, visit my site
.
Original painting, Homestead by J Francis Murphy