#20 John Enneking 'Fall at Dusk' - 25 Days of Tonalism
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist painting with M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is a study after John Enneking - 'Fall at Dusk.'
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.
Starting a painting is always the hardest part. I've devised a number of strategies to support this process so that I have a procedure in place before I begin a painting.
My planning process really begins with coming across a scene in nature that I think would make an interesting painting motif. There have been times in the past where I would do some on spot Plein air painting, but these days I prefer to use a camera to capture any scene that I think worthy.
Typically, I will photograph the scene from many different angles and perspectives. I always make sure to do this because you never know until you get a photo home and look at it on the computer whether it will adequately have recorded the scene you came across. I try to shoot the scene both from a lower worm's eye perspective and sometimes higher, standing on my toes. I also have a very nice camera with a really good zoom lens so that I can capture the scene from a variety of focal points.
I then prepare my scene in Photoshop making any appropriate changes. The focus at this step is always to do things to support my painting. There are times when my photo edits might seem garish or over the top, but their purpose is to help inspire a painting and not function as 'photographs'.
Another thing I do is paint a small study prior to doing my larger painting. I use the same basic steps to paint my study as I do the larger work, but it goes much quicker because it doesn't take very long to paint a 5x7 or 5x5. Lately, I've been working without the study step with my current pass of paintings that I'm doing and that's working out well.
I discussed board preparation in the recent past. However, this might be a good place to touch again on the topic of having a nicely prepared surface for your painting. I like to use earth tones as my ground color, either Burnt Sienna or Burnt Umber. Also, it's good to have some sort of texturing established on the board, whether it's gesso or something else. I like to have a certain amount of the wood grain of the board coming through, but not too much. Ultimately, you want to have the surface that is inviting you to paint.
When I do start my actual painting I do a drawing with a brush. This usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes and helps me get my bearings and have my composition established, as well as some of my darkest values in place.
These days working on the Burnt Umber I have been using Black Ivory, but in the past working over Burnt Sienna grounds, I would often do my drawings with Burnt Sienna and Black together. Either way, I think it's good to have a framework established, just like you would if you were putting up a building. By the way, even on my studies, I will do a drawing prior to going in with color.
Right before my first color pass, I will premix on my pallet, anywhere from 8 to 14 of the most predominant colors in my painting. This is just another way of getting my head wrapped around the motif and making it easier to paint.
It's only after all of these preparatory steps that I actually begin putting color down on my paintings. You can see by the time I'm ready to start, I've already done a lot of work that is supporting my painting process.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study painted after John Enneking- 'Fall at Dusk'; John Enneking is an awesome artist and this was one of the Tonalist studies I was most excited to do in this current bunch of studies. I love his muted color sense and I think I did a good job of representing the colors in his painting.
The draftsmanship is maybe a little bit off but still gets the idea across. It's not really necessary to duplicate every tree branch or exact proportion of his painting to have a good study anyway.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - 'Fall at Dusk' by John Enneking, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x5, 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.
Starting a painting is always the hardest part. I've devised a number of strategies to support this process so that I have a procedure in place before I begin a painting.
My planning process really begins with coming across a scene in nature that I think would make an interesting painting motif. There have been times in the past where I would do some on spot Plein air painting, but these days I prefer to use a camera to capture any scene that I think worthy.
Typically, I will photograph the scene from many different angles and perspectives. I always make sure to do this because you never know until you get a photo home and look at it on the computer whether it will adequately have recorded the scene you came across. I try to shoot the scene both from a lower worm's eye perspective and sometimes higher, standing on my toes. I also have a very nice camera with a really good zoom lens so that I can capture the scene from a variety of focal points.
I then prepare my scene in Photoshop making any appropriate changes. The focus at this step is always to do things to support my painting. There are times when my photo edits might seem garish or over the top, but their purpose is to help inspire a painting and not function as 'photographs'.
Another thing I do is paint a small study prior to doing my larger painting. I use the same basic steps to paint my study as I do the larger work, but it goes much quicker because it doesn't take very long to paint a 5x7 or 5x5. Lately, I've been working without the study step with my current pass of paintings that I'm doing and that's working out well.
I discussed board preparation in the recent past. However, this might be a good place to touch again on the topic of having a nicely prepared surface for your painting. I like to use earth tones as my ground color, either Burnt Sienna or Burnt Umber. Also, it's good to have some sort of texturing established on the board, whether it's gesso or something else. I like to have a certain amount of the wood grain of the board coming through, but not too much. Ultimately, you want to have the surface that is inviting you to paint.
When I do start my actual painting I do a drawing with a brush. This usually takes about 20 to 30 minutes and helps me get my bearings and have my composition established, as well as some of my darkest values in place.
These days working on the Burnt Umber I have been using Black Ivory, but in the past working over Burnt Sienna grounds, I would often do my drawings with Burnt Sienna and Black together. Either way, I think it's good to have a framework established, just like you would if you were putting up a building. By the way, even on my studies, I will do a drawing prior to going in with color.
Right before my first color pass, I will premix on my pallet, anywhere from 8 to 14 of the most predominant colors in my painting. This is just another way of getting my head wrapped around the motif and making it easier to paint.
It's only after all of these preparatory steps that I actually begin putting color down on my paintings. You can see by the time I'm ready to start, I've already done a lot of work that is supporting my painting process.
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about my study painted after John Enneking- 'Fall at Dusk'; John Enneking is an awesome artist and this was one of the Tonalist studies I was most excited to do in this current bunch of studies. I love his muted color sense and I think I did a good job of representing the colors in his painting.
The draftsmanship is maybe a little bit off but still gets the idea across. It's not really necessary to duplicate every tree branch or exact proportion of his painting to have a good study anyway.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
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| Original Painting, John Enneking 'Fall at Dusk' |
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| Study painted after - 'Fall at Dusk' by John Enneking (Detail) |
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| Study painted after - 'Fall at Dusk' by John Enneking (Detail 2) |
Day Forty One: Autumn Sunset by John Enneking
Hello and welcome to day 41 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is of Autumn Sunset by John Enneking.
John Enneking Born 1841 Died 1916 was an amazing artist, generally considered to be an Impressionist but much of his work falls into the Tonalist ethos. He is fairly well known today I'm linking here to Artsy if you want to see more of his work. Another musical video today. My wifes contracted the same lurgy that got me and I'm not going to wake her with my narration. Instead please enjoy another track from my album "All is One".
In keeping with our ongoing discussion of some of the defining aspects of Tonalist painting, I'd like to discuss dry brushing today. While dry brushing is not strictly Tonalist in nature it was used quite alot in Tonalist paintings. This really leads to a brief aside on two modes of painting: Direct or Alla Prima and Indirect painting.
Alla Prima refers to the idea that the entire painting is done wet into wet generally all in one painting session. There is usually no preliminary drawing done and the painter will often build up their painting from thin turp washes at the beginning through to thicker paint at the end. Many if not all Impressionists favored this approach as well as painters like Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Also Alla Prima lends itself well to working outdoors (en Plein Air).
In contrast, the indirect approach (most used by Tonalists) is usually done in the studio. This is my favored approach but there are many different ways of painting indirectly. For the sake of brevity I'll just outline my approach:
This gets us back to my original topic of dry brushing. Dry brushing as a technique goes way back into the dim beginnings of painting. Basically it is the application of small amounts of pigment lightly worked over the existing painting. Often the side of a relatively clean brush is used to apply the paint.
I like dry brushing because it adds texture and interest to my paintings. It can however be overdone so I try to use the technique strategically and sparingly. To me it goes hand in hand with glazing (which we talked about yesterday). It's a great way to add richness to a scene and I find my self employing it more and more in my own work.
Btw I'd say I only used dry brushing and or glazing on about half the studies in this series. After my drawing and first collr passes I evaluated each study carefully to se if it needed that extra push.I felt that about half of the studies did. That ended up adding an addition month to the time it took to execute the series but in the end I feel it was worth it.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Autumn Sunset by John Enneking, This is a really interesting painting by Enneking and I really wanted to use it for this series. Enneking is one of my big inspirations for doing small studies in the first place. Several years ago I came across one of his studies and was really impressed with the vibrant color and fractured brush work.
What interested me most about this image was the maroon trees and the idiosyncratic composition. Unfortunately as you can see below the reference image had a lot of glare on it which I did my best to paint around.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Painted after - Autumn Sunset by John Enneking, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x7, Oil on wood panel |
Today's study is of Autumn Sunset by John Enneking.
John Enneking Born 1841 Died 1916 was an amazing artist, generally considered to be an Impressionist but much of his work falls into the Tonalist ethos. He is fairly well known today I'm linking here to Artsy if you want to see more of his work. Another musical video today. My wifes contracted the same lurgy that got me and I'm not going to wake her with my narration. Instead please enjoy another track from my album "All is One".
In keeping with our ongoing discussion of some of the defining aspects of Tonalist painting, I'd like to discuss dry brushing today. While dry brushing is not strictly Tonalist in nature it was used quite alot in Tonalist paintings. This really leads to a brief aside on two modes of painting: Direct or Alla Prima and Indirect painting.
Alla Prima refers to the idea that the entire painting is done wet into wet generally all in one painting session. There is usually no preliminary drawing done and the painter will often build up their painting from thin turp washes at the beginning through to thicker paint at the end. Many if not all Impressionists favored this approach as well as painters like Whistler and John Singer Sargent. Also Alla Prima lends itself well to working outdoors (en Plein Air).
In contrast, the indirect approach (most used by Tonalists) is usually done in the studio. This is my favored approach but there are many different ways of painting indirectly. For the sake of brevity I'll just outline my approach:
- Tone and texture a wood panel.
- Do a mass drawing of the subject that outlines the major forms and values.
- First color pass, block in the major forms and colors (in my case I try to do most of the painting here)
- Glaze some areas of the apinting with appropriate pigments.
- Second color pass, add some detail and modify or correct as necessary.
- As part o0f the second color pass, drybrush to enhance textures and soften forms..
This gets us back to my original topic of dry brushing. Dry brushing as a technique goes way back into the dim beginnings of painting. Basically it is the application of small amounts of pigment lightly worked over the existing painting. Often the side of a relatively clean brush is used to apply the paint.
I like dry brushing because it adds texture and interest to my paintings. It can however be overdone so I try to use the technique strategically and sparingly. To me it goes hand in hand with glazing (which we talked about yesterday). It's a great way to add richness to a scene and I find my self employing it more and more in my own work.
Btw I'd say I only used dry brushing and or glazing on about half the studies in this series. After my drawing and first collr passes I evaluated each study carefully to se if it needed that extra push.I felt that about half of the studies did. That ended up adding an addition month to the time it took to execute the series but in the end I feel it was worth it.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Autumn Sunset by John Enneking, This is a really interesting painting by Enneking and I really wanted to use it for this series. Enneking is one of my big inspirations for doing small studies in the first place. Several years ago I came across one of his studies and was really impressed with the vibrant color and fractured brush work.
What interested me most about this image was the maroon trees and the idiosyncratic composition. Unfortunately as you can see below the reference image had a lot of glare on it which I did my best to paint around.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Original painting, Autumn Sunset by John Enneking |
Day Twenty Three: Venice at night by John Enneking
Hello and welcome to day 23 of 100 days of Tonalism.
Today's study is of 'Venice at night' by John Enneking.
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| Painted after - Venice at night by John Enneking, Study by M Francis McCarthy - Size 5x5, Oil on wood panel |
John Enneking was born in 1841 and died in 1916. He is generally considered to be an Impressionist painter but a survey of his work reveals strong Tonalist tendencies. I can't say that I love everything that John Enneking has done but there is certainly a lot of high-quality work there.
He is more well-known than several of the previous artists we've done on this blog. He achieved quite a lot of fame in his life and judging from the availability of information about him on the Internet, he is still quite popular in many art circles.
In keeping with our theme of the last few days about the defining characteristics of Tonalism, I like to talk today about fractured brushwork.
Many artists since before even the great masters would exhibit loose expressive brushwork in their studies, but when it came to producing the actual paintings they presented to the public at large, brushwork was usually far more refined. There are some definite exceptions to this among the old Masters, Rembrandt being chief among these. For the most part, a high finish was the standard for many centuries. By this I mean, the brushstrokes on most paintings were usually smoothed together and overlapped so that there was little focus or attention paid on the actual brush strokes.
In the 19th century painters like Millet and Corot started the trend towards a looser and more open expressive style of painting. This was strongly carried forward by Impressionists towards the end of the 19th century and is one of the defining characteristics of Tonalism as well. Most Tonalists utilize a loose fracture of brushstrokes in their paintings to render the scene, while still keeping brushwork loose to enhance the expressive qualities of the painting. There is very little effort put towards a high polish in the rendering.
In some cases, Tonalist painters will diffuse forms in their landscape paintings almost to the point of looking like they were being perceived through a textured piece of glass. In my own work I strive to keep my brushwork loose and expressive. For that reason, I tend to use brushes that are just a bit larger than what is comfortable to paint with.
A bit about 'Venice at night' by John Enneking: This is very far from the type of scene that I would ever paint and I have not been fortunate enough to visit Venice in person yet. However, I was attracted to the strong tonal quality of this painting by John and it also works very well in a square format.
The original by Enneking is actually quite a remarkable painting. I will be including a version of it at the bottom of this post. I'm happy with my study, but I was very very constrained by the small size of the panel. All in all though the piece is an attractive painting and I'm happy that I pursued this as a study.
To see more of my work, visit my site here.
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| Original painting, Venice at night by John Enneking |