Through the Forest 5x7
Hello and Welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Through the Forest' 5x7.
Our video features the progression of this painting from initial drawing stage, on through to the finish, as well as my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
On today's video, I was talking about knowing when to abandon your reference, whether it is a photo or you are actually painting directly from nature.
Paintings created with an excess of detail tend to fail mightily. More detail will never save your picture if it is failing, and if it is failing it's because the big shapes, values and color modulations are not in the right places. Adding more detail to a weak painting never works.
I've talked before about this phenomenon. At that time I referred to it as the 'robot'. The robot loves to paint but is not very good at it. The robot sucks at painting because he just transliterates what he sees from his reference to the paintings surface. In other words he copies.
Nothing good ever came out of copying with the one outstanding exception of copying the work of master painters for learning purposes. Doing the same with a photo yields negative learning and just reinforces the bad habit of being a copyist.
What is the way out of this trap? How do you escape being a robot painter?
The best way I know is to internalize the lesson I've just imparted and abandon your reference at the soonest, concentrating instead on creating a pleasing composition based on the reference instead.
Over time, you will see the huge benefits that you can accrue as a painter if this is your modus operandi. As you proceed in this manner, you will also start to perceive how badly you sucked as a painter when you let the robot take over, which will reinforce new good habits and obliviate nasty bad ones.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Through the Forest' 5x7: This study works well and I'm happy with it. I'm even more pleased with the 8x10 version we'll be discussing in our next blog post. A lot of my paintings from this period were not as successful as I'd like but I'm happy to show off 'Through the Forest.'
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Through the Forest by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video features the progression of this painting from initial drawing stage, on through to the finish, as well as my usual rambling narration, so please check it out.
On today's video, I was talking about knowing when to abandon your reference, whether it is a photo or you are actually painting directly from nature.
Paintings created with an excess of detail tend to fail mightily. More detail will never save your picture if it is failing, and if it is failing it's because the big shapes, values and color modulations are not in the right places. Adding more detail to a weak painting never works.
I've talked before about this phenomenon. At that time I referred to it as the 'robot'. The robot loves to paint but is not very good at it. The robot sucks at painting because he just transliterates what he sees from his reference to the paintings surface. In other words he copies.
Nothing good ever came out of copying with the one outstanding exception of copying the work of master painters for learning purposes. Doing the same with a photo yields negative learning and just reinforces the bad habit of being a copyist.
What is the way out of this trap? How do you escape being a robot painter?
The best way I know is to internalize the lesson I've just imparted and abandon your reference at the soonest, concentrating instead on creating a pleasing composition based on the reference instead.
Over time, you will see the huge benefits that you can accrue as a painter if this is your modus operandi. As you proceed in this manner, you will also start to perceive how badly you sucked as a painter when you let the robot take over, which will reinforce new good habits and obliviate nasty bad ones.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Through the Forest' 5x7: This study works well and I'm happy with it. I'm even more pleased with the 8x10 version we'll be discussing in our next blog post. A lot of my paintings from this period were not as successful as I'd like but I'm happy to show off 'Through the Forest.'
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Through the Forest (Detail) |
Dappled Glade 8x10
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is Dappled Glade 8x10.
Today's video shows the progression of this painting from its initial early drawing stages, on up to the final glaze applications and brushwork, so please check it out.
There are two basic approaches to landscape painting; direct and indirect. For the most part, Tonalism favors an indirect approach and I have written about this in previous blog posts. Today I like to talk about some of the reasons why I use the indirect method and also the benefits that come from working this way.
I start with and underpainting which I generally refer to as a drawing (even though it is done with a brush and paint). Doing an underpainting is one of the most defining characteristics of working in an indirect manner, as the painting is built up in stages from the underpainting on through to the last final touches over time.
I was working with a student last week and I may post the audio from that teaching session at some point on this blog. One thing that I kept mentioning to my student was how I would purposely do things to support myself as a painter, because I feel that the indirect method gives us the most support as landscape painters.
By support, I mean that each time that you are approaching the painting with a brush in your hand you have some previous work that been done that is supporting the effort that you are about to expend.
This support starts with taking a good photograph. Then, (in my case) the support continues by manipulating that photograph in Photoshop so that by the time you are ready to use it as photographic reference for your painting, you have already got the creation process well underway.
Then the wood panel is prepared with a nice texture that invites paint application. After that, I can proceed with doing a duotone under painting/drawing. At this stage the painting has begun but there is still a lot of room to change things and adjust before the actual color painting starts.
Another way that I support myself as a painter, is that prior to doing the initial color stage I will premix anywhere from 8 to 10 of the major colors from my motif. I often adjust these, but I find it's helpful to premix because I'm familiarizing myself with the basic and most important colors in the painting prior to picking up my brush.
So, before I begin my first color pass, I have already expended some effort. This allows me to focus on the color modulations and important value changes of my subject while painting. I have already sorted out my composition and basic value structure in the underpainting/drawing stage.
Many painters who work in a direct manner (alla prima) skip all of these previous stages and just jump unto a white canvas with a brush, their reference, or outdoor scene (if that is how they are working). I think this is the primary way that many people think that painting should be done these days, and it is possible get a good result this way. For the type of painting I like to do it would be much more difficult for me if I didn't have these initial support stages to get the results that I am after.
The final way that I support myself as a painter is that I do not attempt to do all of my painting in that first color pass, but reserve certain areas to be painted when the painting is dry so that I can take advantage of glazing and dry brushing and also have time to consider and plan the best way to proceed with my painting.
Hopefully, this has given you some insight into the reasons that I work in an indirect manner and the advantages that it has. I should say here that the main downside to working indirectly is running the risk of overworking your painting while the primary advantage of working directly is that you will generally retain the more fresh approach that comes from putting all your paint on at once.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Dappled Glade' 8x10; this painting currently is hanging in my studio at the Quarry Art Center in Whangarei. I completed it about a month ago. It's a striking painting mostly because of the intense contrasts between the light and dark areas. I enjoyed doing this painting and I will most likely be doing more of this type of landscape in the future.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Dappled Glade by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's video shows the progression of this painting from its initial early drawing stages, on up to the final glaze applications and brushwork, so please check it out.
There are two basic approaches to landscape painting; direct and indirect. For the most part, Tonalism favors an indirect approach and I have written about this in previous blog posts. Today I like to talk about some of the reasons why I use the indirect method and also the benefits that come from working this way.
I start with and underpainting which I generally refer to as a drawing (even though it is done with a brush and paint). Doing an underpainting is one of the most defining characteristics of working in an indirect manner, as the painting is built up in stages from the underpainting on through to the last final touches over time.
I was working with a student last week and I may post the audio from that teaching session at some point on this blog. One thing that I kept mentioning to my student was how I would purposely do things to support myself as a painter, because I feel that the indirect method gives us the most support as landscape painters.
By support, I mean that each time that you are approaching the painting with a brush in your hand you have some previous work that been done that is supporting the effort that you are about to expend.
This support starts with taking a good photograph. Then, (in my case) the support continues by manipulating that photograph in Photoshop so that by the time you are ready to use it as photographic reference for your painting, you have already got the creation process well underway.
Then the wood panel is prepared with a nice texture that invites paint application. After that, I can proceed with doing a duotone under painting/drawing. At this stage the painting has begun but there is still a lot of room to change things and adjust before the actual color painting starts.
Another way that I support myself as a painter, is that prior to doing the initial color stage I will premix anywhere from 8 to 10 of the major colors from my motif. I often adjust these, but I find it's helpful to premix because I'm familiarizing myself with the basic and most important colors in the painting prior to picking up my brush.
So, before I begin my first color pass, I have already expended some effort. This allows me to focus on the color modulations and important value changes of my subject while painting. I have already sorted out my composition and basic value structure in the underpainting/drawing stage.
Many painters who work in a direct manner (alla prima) skip all of these previous stages and just jump unto a white canvas with a brush, their reference, or outdoor scene (if that is how they are working). I think this is the primary way that many people think that painting should be done these days, and it is possible get a good result this way. For the type of painting I like to do it would be much more difficult for me if I didn't have these initial support stages to get the results that I am after.
The final way that I support myself as a painter is that I do not attempt to do all of my painting in that first color pass, but reserve certain areas to be painted when the painting is dry so that I can take advantage of glazing and dry brushing and also have time to consider and plan the best way to proceed with my painting.
Hopefully, this has given you some insight into the reasons that I work in an indirect manner and the advantages that it has. I should say here that the main downside to working indirectly is running the risk of overworking your painting while the primary advantage of working directly is that you will generally retain the more fresh approach that comes from putting all your paint on at once.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Dappled Glade' 8x10; this painting currently is hanging in my studio at the Quarry Art Center in Whangarei. I completed it about a month ago. It's a striking painting mostly because of the intense contrasts between the light and dark areas. I enjoyed doing this painting and I will most likely be doing more of this type of landscape in the future.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Dappled Glade by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 (Detail) |
M Francis Site Updated!
At Long last I've updated the Home page and painting sections of my website!
There's a bunch of new things up there. I don't update my site as often as I should, sorry. What can I say I'm a painter, not a web guy.
 |
| Evening Glow by M Francis McCarthy, 8x8 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
There's a bunch of new things up there. I don't update my site as often as I should, sorry. What can I say I'm a painter, not a web guy.
For you loyal and curious followers of my painting I link here a secret hidden page of past paintings that were featured on my site at some point in the past.
And, for the even more loyal and super curious among you, I offer a link to this page of even older paintings.
Left to my own devices, I'd have all of these up all of the time. But, I have it under good advisement that less is more so I tend to feature only recent or semi-recent paintings on my website proper.
By the way, I don't post prices or availability so there's no conflict with galleries etc but if there is a painting of mine you see and are interested in purchasing, send me an email and I'll let you know if it's available either through my archive or a gallery.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Evening Glow' 8x8: I painted this in 2014. It's been sold since. I'm fond of the color pallet and edges on this one. No video today but I will do this painting in a future blog at some point.
To see more of my work, visit my site here.
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Evening Glow' 8x8: I painted this in 2014. It's been sold since. I'm fond of the color pallet and edges on this one. No video today but I will do this painting in a future blog at some point.
To see more of my work, visit my site here.
Dappled Glade 5x7
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is 'Dappled Glade' 5x7.
The video today features my usual rambling narration over the paintings progression from initial drawing stages on through to my final brushstrokes, so please check that out.
I would like to talk about the concept of personal progression in art today. As people, we all go through changes throughout our lives, and as an artist you have a way of expressing those changes with painting. As I've discussed before on this blog, many of the best things that you do are going to remain good no matter how much you progress as an artist after having painted them.
There are many ways that you can progress as a painter; you can improve technically, you can perceive and execute your paintings with more beautiful and enhanced color, or your work can convey greater amounts of emotion and expression of deeper qualities.
For the most part, this progression is not attained through intellectual effort but predominately through experience. Intellectual effort plays a part in painting, but it is at the being level where feeling is felt and truly expressed that you must work from as a painter. The intellectual mind remembers the failures but is stymied when it comes to creating (on its own) the more accomplished and expressive work. This is not to say that one should not study, especially the work of the Masters, more it is to say that to progress in the ways that really matter as a painter, you must paint a lot, all of the time.
I won't harp on this topic of painting a lot because I have written extensively about it already on my first blog. I paint almost every day and I have for almost 10 years now, except vacations and what not. I stress this idea of painting a lot because I believe that for painting to be good the painter must be very facile and adept at using paint in a fluid and expressive manner. Painting should be easy and effortless like conversing with a friend.
The only way for painting to become something like this to a painter, is for the painter to have spent many hours painting. It's not just the time spent either, it is the level of intention, focus and concentration that has been expended in profitable ways over long periods of time.
There are so many ways to fail in a painting that is not even funny. A good painting requires a sustained effort from the initial conception of the work when presented with the scene in nature or some other venue, through to the final glazes and brushstrokes that complete the work. At any point in this journey an artist can go off the rails, crash and burn and beget yet another bad painting to this world that needs good paintings so desperately.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Dappled Glade' 5x7; the reference photo that this is based on is one that I've had in my collection for several years now. Is not a very inspiring photograph however, I saw something in the scene when I took it and this painting represents what I saw. I like painting these highlighted areas that are in the middle ground surrounded by shadows in the foreground. I'm working on something similar in my studio now that has some additional interesting shapes and details.
I am happy with the way this study turned out and also the larger version that we will be discussing in our next blog post, so tune in for that.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Dappled Glade by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's study is 'Dappled Glade' 5x7.
The video today features my usual rambling narration over the paintings progression from initial drawing stages on through to my final brushstrokes, so please check that out.
I would like to talk about the concept of personal progression in art today. As people, we all go through changes throughout our lives, and as an artist you have a way of expressing those changes with painting. As I've discussed before on this blog, many of the best things that you do are going to remain good no matter how much you progress as an artist after having painted them.
There are many ways that you can progress as a painter; you can improve technically, you can perceive and execute your paintings with more beautiful and enhanced color, or your work can convey greater amounts of emotion and expression of deeper qualities.
For the most part, this progression is not attained through intellectual effort but predominately through experience. Intellectual effort plays a part in painting, but it is at the being level where feeling is felt and truly expressed that you must work from as a painter. The intellectual mind remembers the failures but is stymied when it comes to creating (on its own) the more accomplished and expressive work. This is not to say that one should not study, especially the work of the Masters, more it is to say that to progress in the ways that really matter as a painter, you must paint a lot, all of the time.
I won't harp on this topic of painting a lot because I have written extensively about it already on my first blog. I paint almost every day and I have for almost 10 years now, except vacations and what not. I stress this idea of painting a lot because I believe that for painting to be good the painter must be very facile and adept at using paint in a fluid and expressive manner. Painting should be easy and effortless like conversing with a friend.
The only way for painting to become something like this to a painter, is for the painter to have spent many hours painting. It's not just the time spent either, it is the level of intention, focus and concentration that has been expended in profitable ways over long periods of time.
There are so many ways to fail in a painting that is not even funny. A good painting requires a sustained effort from the initial conception of the work when presented with the scene in nature or some other venue, through to the final glazes and brushstrokes that complete the work. At any point in this journey an artist can go off the rails, crash and burn and beget yet another bad painting to this world that needs good paintings so desperately.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Dappled Glade' 5x7; the reference photo that this is based on is one that I've had in my collection for several years now. Is not a very inspiring photograph however, I saw something in the scene when I took it and this painting represents what I saw. I like painting these highlighted areas that are in the middle ground surrounded by shadows in the foreground. I'm working on something similar in my studio now that has some additional interesting shapes and details.
I am happy with the way this study turned out and also the larger version that we will be discussing in our next blog post, so tune in for that.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Dappled Glade 5x7 (Detail) |
North of Town 8x10
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Our video today features the progression of this painting from its initial drawing stages through to my final glazes and last color pass, so please check that out.
I've been doing a lot (of what I call drawings) over the last several days in the studio. I call them drawings because that is the mindset that I have while creating them. I'm doing them with paint and a brush so it could be more accurate to refer to them as underpaintings.
There are times that I will go in and paint an entire scene without a underpainting/drawing. I tend to do this if I'm reusing a panel that has a older painting on it that I do not like. I will just start by painting with my darkest tones right over the top of the old painting. I don't paint this way very often, but I do have a stack of old paintings only good for this purpose, so I try to do a few every year this way.
Many artists do not do an underpainting or drawing for their paintings. In many ways this is something that distinguishes a lot of modern painters from the Masters that came before. In the days of the old Masters, the drawing was very important and to a large degree painting for them consisted of mostly applying colors over and onto the drawing that they'd prepared and then transferred to the painting surface.
If you have seen my videos here on this blog, you would be aware of my drawing process. I like to work with burnt sienna and pthalo green. I also use an oil (alkyd) medium that tends to act as my lightest painted color. When applied to the board, the medium makes that area of the panel slightly darker than the areas that are dry. Sometimes I'll add the smallest amount of burnt sienna to my initial oil drawing mixture as well.
I like to start very light, as light as I can, and then build up the underpainting that way. I correct as I go and I don't obsess about my drawing being 100% accurate in comparison to the reference, sometimes certain areas will deviate in width or proportion from the photo reference. If I deviate too far however, I can have issues later. I spend a lot of time when I'm cropping my photos in Photoshop making (hopefully good) compositional decisions that I intend to follow through on in the painting itself.
As I progress with my drawing I will begin to work with gradations of pigment upto 100% burnt sienna. Depending on the coloration of my panel and how light or dark it is, the sienna can be medium in tone, or can appear quite dark. After that I will mix pthalo green with burnt sienna for my darkest areas. Sometimes I will do the darkest areas first and then follow up with burnt sienna to smooth things out. I like the darkness I get with the pthalo green and burnt sienna mixed. At the time I'm doing the drawing this mixture can feel very dark. Later on when I'm doing the color stages of the painting using my favorite dark combination of pthalo green and alizarin crimson, I can go much darker so I still have some room to move after my underpainting stage.
I've noticed that even though my entire underpainting gets covered over in the initial color pass, that the decisions I've made regarding composition and proportion while doing that initial drawing will follow through the entire painting. Also, if you look at my work closely in a zoomed in photograph, you will see that little bits of the underpainting are peeking through as well as the board itself so that under painting is not a wasted effort. It sets things up so I can focus on color and refine values in my later painting stages.
For artists that choose not to do an underpainting I can understand their hesitation as it can stiffen up your work if your not careful. However for the type of personality that I have and paintings I do, I find that it's very advantageous to do an underpainting/drawing first.
A long time back I experimented with projecting my reference photographs onto the board and tracing the image with charcoal. I would then go over that with my burnt sienna/pthalo green mixture. I learned the error of working this way quite a while back. It's far better for the underpainting to be done with my hand and my eye. There's nothing in the photograph that is so important that it needs to be projected onto the board, especially if an artist is an able draftsman.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'North of Town' 8x10; this painting is more typically Tonalist than a lot of my other recent work. I'm using a limited range of colors and values in this painting. The sky is more subtle and subdued then I generally go for as well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| North of Town 8x10 by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's painting is 'North of Town' 8x10.
Our video today features the progression of this painting from its initial drawing stages through to my final glazes and last color pass, so please check that out.
I've been doing a lot (of what I call drawings) over the last several days in the studio. I call them drawings because that is the mindset that I have while creating them. I'm doing them with paint and a brush so it could be more accurate to refer to them as underpaintings.
There are times that I will go in and paint an entire scene without a underpainting/drawing. I tend to do this if I'm reusing a panel that has a older painting on it that I do not like. I will just start by painting with my darkest tones right over the top of the old painting. I don't paint this way very often, but I do have a stack of old paintings only good for this purpose, so I try to do a few every year this way.
Many artists do not do an underpainting or drawing for their paintings. In many ways this is something that distinguishes a lot of modern painters from the Masters that came before. In the days of the old Masters, the drawing was very important and to a large degree painting for them consisted of mostly applying colors over and onto the drawing that they'd prepared and then transferred to the painting surface.
If you have seen my videos here on this blog, you would be aware of my drawing process. I like to work with burnt sienna and pthalo green. I also use an oil (alkyd) medium that tends to act as my lightest painted color. When applied to the board, the medium makes that area of the panel slightly darker than the areas that are dry. Sometimes I'll add the smallest amount of burnt sienna to my initial oil drawing mixture as well.
I like to start very light, as light as I can, and then build up the underpainting that way. I correct as I go and I don't obsess about my drawing being 100% accurate in comparison to the reference, sometimes certain areas will deviate in width or proportion from the photo reference. If I deviate too far however, I can have issues later. I spend a lot of time when I'm cropping my photos in Photoshop making (hopefully good) compositional decisions that I intend to follow through on in the painting itself.
As I progress with my drawing I will begin to work with gradations of pigment upto 100% burnt sienna. Depending on the coloration of my panel and how light or dark it is, the sienna can be medium in tone, or can appear quite dark. After that I will mix pthalo green with burnt sienna for my darkest areas. Sometimes I will do the darkest areas first and then follow up with burnt sienna to smooth things out. I like the darkness I get with the pthalo green and burnt sienna mixed. At the time I'm doing the drawing this mixture can feel very dark. Later on when I'm doing the color stages of the painting using my favorite dark combination of pthalo green and alizarin crimson, I can go much darker so I still have some room to move after my underpainting stage.
I've noticed that even though my entire underpainting gets covered over in the initial color pass, that the decisions I've made regarding composition and proportion while doing that initial drawing will follow through the entire painting. Also, if you look at my work closely in a zoomed in photograph, you will see that little bits of the underpainting are peeking through as well as the board itself so that under painting is not a wasted effort. It sets things up so I can focus on color and refine values in my later painting stages.
For artists that choose not to do an underpainting I can understand their hesitation as it can stiffen up your work if your not careful. However for the type of personality that I have and paintings I do, I find that it's very advantageous to do an underpainting/drawing first.
A long time back I experimented with projecting my reference photographs onto the board and tracing the image with charcoal. I would then go over that with my burnt sienna/pthalo green mixture. I learned the error of working this way quite a while back. It's far better for the underpainting to be done with my hand and my eye. There's nothing in the photograph that is so important that it needs to be projected onto the board, especially if an artist is an able draftsman.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'North of Town' 8x10; this painting is more typically Tonalist than a lot of my other recent work. I'm using a limited range of colors and values in this painting. The sky is more subtle and subdued then I generally go for as well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| North of Town 8x10 (detail) |
North of Town 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is North of Town 5x7.
Our video today shows the progression of this study from its initial drawing stages, through to the final color pass and glazes. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check the video out.
I was talking on the video about how last night I was reviewing on my iPad the 500 or so paintings I've done since coming out here to New Zealand. I find it useful sometimes to scan over my previous work because I may gain insights, other useful information, or most importantly, see things that I didn't see before.
Sadly, every time I do this, I tend to notice more paintings that are not as good as I thought they were at the time that I finished painting them. This is something I think that happens to every painter. Generally speaking, the ones that stood out as being very good works after I completed them are still good. It's that middle section of work that tends to reveal issues and problems over time.
This is an interesting phenomenon. It would be great (I think?), if every painting that I did was absolutely outstanding. Closer to the truth is that there are excellent paintings, middling paintings and dogs. I'm getting better at avoiding the dogs altogether and I'm also improving the quality of the middling paintings and perhaps even achieving more excellent paintings.
One of the reasons that I decided to dedicate the last years of my artistic life as a visual artist to landscape painting, was that I knew it was extremely hard to master and that I would never be bored. That has held true since I started on this landscape painting journey back in 2008/2009.
I have noticed that when a painting of mine has issues it is almost invariably because of its composition. There are many aspects of a painting that every artist needs to consider; composition, color, texture, size and variation of values to name a few. Any one of these aspects that are neglected can lead to a poor painting. Usually the way that I fail when I fail is due to composition.
Composition is a harsh mistress and doubly so when you are using photographic reference. Because photographs just copy nature without any editing, it is very rare that any given photograph will create a perfect painting. It does happen and it is possible but highly unlikely.
All paintings must be designed by the artist. You cannot just copy what is there in the photograph or if painting outdoors, just copy nature itself. Trees must be moved, roads that are straight made curved and skies manipulated to accentuate the composition. Everything that is in the painting must serve the composition or be eliminated.
I feel that the exercise I did last year of the hundred days of Tonalism project really helped me in this area quite a lot. For that reason and also to fill those little spare bits of time in the studio I am going to be undertaking another 25 Tonalist studies.
I'm not intending to dedicate my full painting schedule to this project as I did with the hundred days of Tonalism, but I'm going to work on the studies here and there over time. When I have finished doing five paintings or so, I may do some photography so that I can present them on this blog sooner.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'North of Town' 5x7; I'm happy with the little study and its larger sibling that we will be discussing on Tuesday. I went with a very muted Tonalist pallet here and the sky has less color and dynamics than I usually incorporate into my work. The reason for this is that I wanted to put the emphasis on the silhouettes of the trees against the simpler sky because I felt they created a pleasing composition.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| North of Town by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video today shows the progression of this study from its initial drawing stages, through to the final color pass and glazes. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check the video out.
I was talking on the video about how last night I was reviewing on my iPad the 500 or so paintings I've done since coming out here to New Zealand. I find it useful sometimes to scan over my previous work because I may gain insights, other useful information, or most importantly, see things that I didn't see before.
Sadly, every time I do this, I tend to notice more paintings that are not as good as I thought they were at the time that I finished painting them. This is something I think that happens to every painter. Generally speaking, the ones that stood out as being very good works after I completed them are still good. It's that middle section of work that tends to reveal issues and problems over time.
This is an interesting phenomenon. It would be great (I think?), if every painting that I did was absolutely outstanding. Closer to the truth is that there are excellent paintings, middling paintings and dogs. I'm getting better at avoiding the dogs altogether and I'm also improving the quality of the middling paintings and perhaps even achieving more excellent paintings.
One of the reasons that I decided to dedicate the last years of my artistic life as a visual artist to landscape painting, was that I knew it was extremely hard to master and that I would never be bored. That has held true since I started on this landscape painting journey back in 2008/2009.
I have noticed that when a painting of mine has issues it is almost invariably because of its composition. There are many aspects of a painting that every artist needs to consider; composition, color, texture, size and variation of values to name a few. Any one of these aspects that are neglected can lead to a poor painting. Usually the way that I fail when I fail is due to composition.
Composition is a harsh mistress and doubly so when you are using photographic reference. Because photographs just copy nature without any editing, it is very rare that any given photograph will create a perfect painting. It does happen and it is possible but highly unlikely.
All paintings must be designed by the artist. You cannot just copy what is there in the photograph or if painting outdoors, just copy nature itself. Trees must be moved, roads that are straight made curved and skies manipulated to accentuate the composition. Everything that is in the painting must serve the composition or be eliminated.
I feel that the exercise I did last year of the hundred days of Tonalism project really helped me in this area quite a lot. For that reason and also to fill those little spare bits of time in the studio I am going to be undertaking another 25 Tonalist studies.
I'm not intending to dedicate my full painting schedule to this project as I did with the hundred days of Tonalism, but I'm going to work on the studies here and there over time. When I have finished doing five paintings or so, I may do some photography so that I can present them on this blog sooner.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'North of Town' 5x7; I'm happy with the little study and its larger sibling that we will be discussing on Tuesday. I went with a very muted Tonalist pallet here and the sky has less color and dynamics than I usually incorporate into my work. The reason for this is that I wanted to put the emphasis on the silhouettes of the trees against the simpler sky because I felt they created a pleasing composition.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| North of Town by M Francis McCarthy (Detail) |
Twilight Breaking 8x10
Hello, and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Our video follows the progression of this study from its original drawing stage to its completion. Also featured is my rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today I'm posting my notes from the book 'Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color' by Kevin McPherson.. These notes are pretty raw but they contain some real gems from this awesome book. If any of this information resonates with you, purchase it.
This book has been in print for quite a while, I am sharing my notes from it because it was one of the books that I first picked up back when I was teaching myself how to paint. It was very useful and very valuable to me in my learning process. I highly recommend this book to any painter direct or indirect.
The book divided the book into eight chapters
Chapter 1 Seeing color accurately
Chapter 2 Mixing clean fresh color, the light family and the shadow family
Chapter 4 Simplifying shapes for a good start
Chapter 5 Still life painting indoor challenges
Chapter 6 Plein air painting outdoor observations
Chapter 7 Pochade painting small and beautiful
Chapter 8 Studio painting, expanding your horizons
The beginning of the first chapter and goes over various materials and equipment
Of interest, is that he uses a slide projector and approaches the image on the projector as he would a scene in front of him from nature. This is something that I've been doing myself (with a digital frame) for the last year and even more so now that I have a larger monitor.
There's a good note about committing to growth
You need to develop at your own pace. Don't let anyone discourage you. Pledge to paint 100 simple flat poster like paintings as expressed in this book. This is one of the things that I took to heart, one of the best bits of advice that Kevin gave me and that was to do 100 small paintings.
He places emphasis on seeing color truly in nature especially outdoors.
He has a page here that says 'forget what you know, meaning that our preconceived ideas of what colors are and where they should be at. For example, the sky is blue and the trees are green and the grass is yellow etc. are not always, or even usually true.
He has a tip here about your viewing your subject out of focus. Which is something that I do. It's very easy for me because I just take my glasses off. I highly recommend this to anyone that I know that is beginning to paint.
It is called 'squint down' by Bob Rohm and Kevin refers to it as looking at things out of focus. This will increase your sensitivity to color and also put the stress in your painting on the large shapes.
Recommends breaking shapes Into Planes to Simplify the way that the color is breaks as it moves over an individual form.
He puts emphasis in painting the individual color notes instead of the things themselves and this is something that I stress in my own work as well.
Eradicate details. Detail does not necessarily make for a better painting.
Kevin's pallet consists of cadmium yellow pale, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue and windsor green.
This is his key to achieving harmony,he uses a very limited palette to mix all of the colors that he uses in his painting. This is also the way I started out and I highly recommend limiting your palette for the beginning painter. Colors that I myself added in short order after beginning were yellow ocher and I painting palette for quite a while.
Grays complement brights if everyone is shouting no one is heard, if all your colors are bright and intense nothing stands out.
Changing value versus color temperature; this is something that I read in this book a long time back, but I didn't really get it myself until two years ago. A lot of times what you're perceiving as a color change in nature is more of a value change and vice a versa that's one reason why I like to meet the sky with the edge of my trees with the same value but a different color very effective.
Chapter 3 He starts by outlining that you should clearly delineate what areas of your painting are in the light which areas are in shade this is something that Bob Rohm stresses in his work as well. Simplifying shapes very important, to simplify your shapes and patterns is a good tip. Also, I always try to link my shadows instead of having separate patchy bits trying form them together to create complementary forms and shapes.
A good way to accomplish this is by squinting down and blurring your vision so that you see the large forms and not the detail.
Chapter 4 starts off by talking more about simplifying shapes for a good start. A good painting has unity and variety. You want big simple shapes that is one of the major secrets to a successful painting and something that I'm working on every day.
When starting a painting he recommends painting all the large big flat shapes of color first and then going in and breaking those into smaller shapes. This is something that I do more as a mental exercise than actually, a lot of direct painters do this is to cover that canvas up. What I tend to favor is to have drawing done in Siepia tones and then to go in and paint pretty much from the top down to the bottom.
He mentions looking for negative shapes which is a very good way of getting your bearings in the painting.
This is not something he mentions but reading his book sparked something that I do quite often. That is always spend a while getting the right color on my pallet before I proceed with painting it on to the canvas. Something that's very easy to overlook. I will work at the color until it looks right to me and I will do an experimental daub on the canvas, if its right, I proceed and if it's not I change it.
Another thing I like to do is and that he doesn't mention, is that I like to modulate my color. If you have a sky that in your reference has just one shade of blue I would deftly modulate the tones from my dark blue to light blue but I would also try and give it a shift from say purplish or greenish at the top to a something more yellowy white or gray white at the bottom.
He makes a good point that painting is a series of corrections. Says that when there are no more corrections to be made, the painting is done.
In reference to sky holes he makes a good point that most painters learn from experience but is something that I picked up from Bob Rohm as well and that is; sky holes are actually darker than the surrounding shade of sky out in the main sky area. Also, the smaller the hole the darker it's color perception should be.
Good tip here which we mentioned earlier; is do what he calls a start which is a simple flat shape study with no detail. You should pledge to do 100 of these. I think it's good to do one a day. At the end of this process you will be a much much better painter. This is one of the biggest best tips that you could ever get from any book and it is extremely valuable and useful.
In this chapter about simplification he does a painting demonstration of a seated woman.
It's a good idea to look for a variety of shapes
Work from big to small.
Chapter 5 is about still life painting and indoor challenges and I do not have much to say about that.
It is a good idea to suggest detail rather than doing it. This is an idea that's taken me a long time to wrap my head around. Suggested detail is far more vital than detail has actually been painstakingly rendered.
Also, it allows the viewer more relaxation and freedom while looking at your work. If you delineate every single detail it's going to have a tight feel that is unpleasant.
Chapter 6 is about plein air painting. I have experimented with plein air painting and I think it is a very viable practice for any artist to engage in. For my purposes though I find working in the studio to be a lot more beneficial.
What I do instead of doing plein air paintings, is to do my small studies prior to doing my larger painting. This gives me the freedom of a plein air with the control that the studio brings.
Issues that I have with plein air paintings are that,some artists like Kevin can make a quite a good painting en plein air but most en plein air paintings have a very samey quality (to my eyes) and that is because the painter is constantly moving to keep up with the changing quality of nature, the change in quality of the light, moving shadows and all the other assorted problems that drive me crazy.
He recommends breaking down your motif into a dark value and a light value sketch previous to actually doing the painting, even if you're just doing a little quick color sketch. This is the equivalent of my initial drawing stage where I use for Sienna and Phathlo green to do my drawing/under painting.
Not in this book but something he said definitely sparks off in my head is that your sky is always going to be the lightest thing in any painting you do. Exceptions to this might be very strong reflections in a pond or lake that are nearly as bright as the sky however. Most the time reflections in water are darker than the colors in the sky that they are reflecting.
Kevin does a gallery section at the end of many of his chapters that show off examples of work utilizing the principles that he is outlined in that chapter.
Gallery seven is about Pochade painting and I do not have much to say about that. Other than I have given it a go and it is basically plein air painting with a small box where you do small studies. This can be very valuable exercise and I recommended any painter give it a try.
Chapter 8 is about studio painting.
He does a demonstration painting based on a small study (done on site) and photographs as well as other notes that he is taken.
He starts off with a warm brown (he calls it a warm brown but it looks quite like a burnt sienna to me) under painting which is good, that is one of the things that is giving his work vibrance.
He mentions in this section that there are many ways to complete a painting and to start a painting and that you should try different approaches to see what works for you.
Good tip here about challenge yourself to do unfamiliar or difficult subjects this will help you grow.
He recommends stepping back often to judge your work so that you do not overwork it. This is very valuable information and something that I'm getting better with all the time.
In the conclusion he sums it up this book is basically about color. Thats why it was called Fill your paintings oil paintings with light in color. So, there's a specific theme to this book . This is also his second book, his first book goes more into basic approaches to creating paintings whiile this book concentrates on making better paintings.
He states color is but one aspect of picture making. You must learn to see color accurately and mix it properly; you must also understand light and shade and how to simplify shapes, composition, drawing etc.
Very good tip here about setting realistic goals throughout your painting career, and keeping track of your progress. Then you can look at older paintings, go back and visit earlier works from time to time. You may surprise yourself. There may be some things you could can do again but overall you will improve.
There is a page dedicated to recommended reading and an index of terms.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about Twilight Breaking 8x10; This painting was done back in Jan of 2014. I'm pretty happy with it and it's a motif that I enjoy returning to.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Twilight Breaking by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's painting is Twilight Breaking 8x10.
Our video follows the progression of this study from its original drawing stage to its completion. Also featured is my rambling narration, so please check it out.
Today I'm posting my notes from the book 'Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color' by Kevin McPherson.. These notes are pretty raw but they contain some real gems from this awesome book. If any of this information resonates with you, purchase it.
This book has been in print for quite a while, I am sharing my notes from it because it was one of the books that I first picked up back when I was teaching myself how to paint. It was very useful and very valuable to me in my learning process. I highly recommend this book to any painter direct or indirect.
The book divided the book into eight chapters
Chapter 1 Seeing color accurately
Chapter 2 Mixing clean fresh color, the light family and the shadow family
Chapter 4 Simplifying shapes for a good start
Chapter 5 Still life painting indoor challenges
Chapter 6 Plein air painting outdoor observations
Chapter 7 Pochade painting small and beautiful
Chapter 8 Studio painting, expanding your horizons
The beginning of the first chapter and goes over various materials and equipment
Of interest, is that he uses a slide projector and approaches the image on the projector as he would a scene in front of him from nature. This is something that I've been doing myself (with a digital frame) for the last year and even more so now that I have a larger monitor.
There's a good note about committing to growth
You need to develop at your own pace. Don't let anyone discourage you. Pledge to paint 100 simple flat poster like paintings as expressed in this book. This is one of the things that I took to heart, one of the best bits of advice that Kevin gave me and that was to do 100 small paintings.
He places emphasis on seeing color truly in nature especially outdoors.
He has a page here that says 'forget what you know, meaning that our preconceived ideas of what colors are and where they should be at. For example, the sky is blue and the trees are green and the grass is yellow etc. are not always, or even usually true.
He has a tip here about your viewing your subject out of focus. Which is something that I do. It's very easy for me because I just take my glasses off. I highly recommend this to anyone that I know that is beginning to paint.
It is called 'squint down' by Bob Rohm and Kevin refers to it as looking at things out of focus. This will increase your sensitivity to color and also put the stress in your painting on the large shapes.
Recommends breaking shapes Into Planes to Simplify the way that the color is breaks as it moves over an individual form.
He puts emphasis in painting the individual color notes instead of the things themselves and this is something that I stress in my own work as well.
Eradicate details. Detail does not necessarily make for a better painting.
Kevin's pallet consists of cadmium yellow pale, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue and windsor green.
This is his key to achieving harmony,he uses a very limited palette to mix all of the colors that he uses in his painting. This is also the way I started out and I highly recommend limiting your palette for the beginning painter. Colors that I myself added in short order after beginning were yellow ocher and I painting palette for quite a while.
Grays complement brights if everyone is shouting no one is heard, if all your colors are bright and intense nothing stands out.
Changing value versus color temperature; this is something that I read in this book a long time back, but I didn't really get it myself until two years ago. A lot of times what you're perceiving as a color change in nature is more of a value change and vice a versa that's one reason why I like to meet the sky with the edge of my trees with the same value but a different color very effective.
Chapter 3 He starts by outlining that you should clearly delineate what areas of your painting are in the light which areas are in shade this is something that Bob Rohm stresses in his work as well. Simplifying shapes very important, to simplify your shapes and patterns is a good tip. Also, I always try to link my shadows instead of having separate patchy bits trying form them together to create complementary forms and shapes.
A good way to accomplish this is by squinting down and blurring your vision so that you see the large forms and not the detail.
Chapter 4 starts off by talking more about simplifying shapes for a good start. A good painting has unity and variety. You want big simple shapes that is one of the major secrets to a successful painting and something that I'm working on every day.
When starting a painting he recommends painting all the large big flat shapes of color first and then going in and breaking those into smaller shapes. This is something that I do more as a mental exercise than actually, a lot of direct painters do this is to cover that canvas up. What I tend to favor is to have drawing done in Siepia tones and then to go in and paint pretty much from the top down to the bottom.
He mentions looking for negative shapes which is a very good way of getting your bearings in the painting.
This is not something he mentions but reading his book sparked something that I do quite often. That is always spend a while getting the right color on my pallet before I proceed with painting it on to the canvas. Something that's very easy to overlook. I will work at the color until it looks right to me and I will do an experimental daub on the canvas, if its right, I proceed and if it's not I change it.
Another thing I like to do is and that he doesn't mention, is that I like to modulate my color. If you have a sky that in your reference has just one shade of blue I would deftly modulate the tones from my dark blue to light blue but I would also try and give it a shift from say purplish or greenish at the top to a something more yellowy white or gray white at the bottom.
He makes a good point that painting is a series of corrections. Says that when there are no more corrections to be made, the painting is done.
In reference to sky holes he makes a good point that most painters learn from experience but is something that I picked up from Bob Rohm as well and that is; sky holes are actually darker than the surrounding shade of sky out in the main sky area. Also, the smaller the hole the darker it's color perception should be.
Good tip here which we mentioned earlier; is do what he calls a start which is a simple flat shape study with no detail. You should pledge to do 100 of these. I think it's good to do one a day. At the end of this process you will be a much much better painter. This is one of the biggest best tips that you could ever get from any book and it is extremely valuable and useful.
In this chapter about simplification he does a painting demonstration of a seated woman.
It's a good idea to look for a variety of shapes
Work from big to small.
Chapter 5 is about still life painting and indoor challenges and I do not have much to say about that.
It is a good idea to suggest detail rather than doing it. This is an idea that's taken me a long time to wrap my head around. Suggested detail is far more vital than detail has actually been painstakingly rendered.
Also, it allows the viewer more relaxation and freedom while looking at your work. If you delineate every single detail it's going to have a tight feel that is unpleasant.
Chapter 6 is about plein air painting. I have experimented with plein air painting and I think it is a very viable practice for any artist to engage in. For my purposes though I find working in the studio to be a lot more beneficial.
What I do instead of doing plein air paintings, is to do my small studies prior to doing my larger painting. This gives me the freedom of a plein air with the control that the studio brings.
Issues that I have with plein air paintings are that,some artists like Kevin can make a quite a good painting en plein air but most en plein air paintings have a very samey quality (to my eyes) and that is because the painter is constantly moving to keep up with the changing quality of nature, the change in quality of the light, moving shadows and all the other assorted problems that drive me crazy.
He recommends breaking down your motif into a dark value and a light value sketch previous to actually doing the painting, even if you're just doing a little quick color sketch. This is the equivalent of my initial drawing stage where I use for Sienna and Phathlo green to do my drawing/under painting.
Not in this book but something he said definitely sparks off in my head is that your sky is always going to be the lightest thing in any painting you do. Exceptions to this might be very strong reflections in a pond or lake that are nearly as bright as the sky however. Most the time reflections in water are darker than the colors in the sky that they are reflecting.
Kevin does a gallery section at the end of many of his chapters that show off examples of work utilizing the principles that he is outlined in that chapter.
Gallery seven is about Pochade painting and I do not have much to say about that. Other than I have given it a go and it is basically plein air painting with a small box where you do small studies. This can be very valuable exercise and I recommended any painter give it a try.
Chapter 8 is about studio painting.
He does a demonstration painting based on a small study (done on site) and photographs as well as other notes that he is taken.
He starts off with a warm brown (he calls it a warm brown but it looks quite like a burnt sienna to me) under painting which is good, that is one of the things that is giving his work vibrance.
He mentions in this section that there are many ways to complete a painting and to start a painting and that you should try different approaches to see what works for you.
Good tip here about challenge yourself to do unfamiliar or difficult subjects this will help you grow.
He recommends stepping back often to judge your work so that you do not overwork it. This is very valuable information and something that I'm getting better with all the time.
In the conclusion he sums it up this book is basically about color. Thats why it was called Fill your paintings oil paintings with light in color. So, there's a specific theme to this book . This is also his second book, his first book goes more into basic approaches to creating paintings whiile this book concentrates on making better paintings.
He states color is but one aspect of picture making. You must learn to see color accurately and mix it properly; you must also understand light and shade and how to simplify shapes, composition, drawing etc.
Very good tip here about setting realistic goals throughout your painting career, and keeping track of your progress. Then you can look at older paintings, go back and visit earlier works from time to time. You may surprise yourself. There may be some things you could can do again but overall you will improve.
There is a page dedicated to recommended reading and an index of terms.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about Twilight Breaking 8x10; This painting was done back in Jan of 2014. I'm pretty happy with it and it's a motif that I enjoy returning to.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Twilight Breaking 8x10 (Detail) |
Breaking Twilight 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is 'Breaking Twilight' 5x7.
Today's video follows the progression of this study from its original drawing stage to its completion. Also featured is my rambling narration, so please check it out.
In the video narration I generally like to talk about what's gone on for me that day in the studio. What I talked about today was how I am currently trying to complete a series that I started back in November. At this point in time there are 15 scenes in the series, there's another painting that I started on Christmas Eve that is a complete repainting over a previously unsuccessful panel.
I have been taking Sundays off to concentrate on household chores and to give my mind a break from thinking about painting. So when I got in the studio on Monday morning, I was feeling sure that I was done with the series having finish the second color pass of the last painting on Saturday. Sitting in my chair looking at the paintings I began to feel an urge to address some small niggling issues that I had noticed as the paintings were drying.
At first I just picked up a brush and a little bit of my chromatic black mixture and was daubing a bit here and there. After a while it became clear to me that I was going to need to do a third color pass on almost every scene. As of today, I have nearly got through the bulk of the series, making small yet important adjustments here and there. Not to mention indulging in my current dry brushing addiction.
As a painter you have to really listen to your inner guidance and intuition to get comfortable with knowing when to stop working on the painting. This is one of the greatest challenges of being a landscape painter. I'm pretty sure that most of us that practice this art are never 100% satisfied with any painting we do. However, there needs to be an end. Followed by a new beginning of course, you always have a chance to do it again better.
My career as an illustrator has both helped and hindered me as a landscape painter. It has helped me in that the primary job of the commercial illustrator is to complete art for print or other purposes. If you work in a commercial studio you know what it means to have a deadline and you know (if you're good) exactly how much you can get away with tweaking an illustration before letting it go.
The way I've have been hindered with my background as illustrator is by my initial artistic (self) training that put a strong emphasis on detail and the importance of rendering. Rendering is what you do when you illustrate and over rendering is a common malaise. This is an issue that you can get away with in illustration work that is absolutely unacceptable in landscape painting. Excessive detail and over rendering are the death of almost any painting.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Breaking Twilight' 5x7; I'm happy with this little study and it currently hangs in my bathroom at home. Fairly pleased with the larger 8x10 version that we will be discussing on Saturday also.
This is a motif that I took a photograph of in England several years back. I have painted it at a 12x18 size and also as a study, and as an 8x10 twice. I feel a great affinity with the sort of lone tree against a beautiful twilight sky motif and I'm sure this will not be the last time I paint something like this.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Breaking Twilight by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's video follows the progression of this study from its original drawing stage to its completion. Also featured is my rambling narration, so please check it out.
In the video narration I generally like to talk about what's gone on for me that day in the studio. What I talked about today was how I am currently trying to complete a series that I started back in November. At this point in time there are 15 scenes in the series, there's another painting that I started on Christmas Eve that is a complete repainting over a previously unsuccessful panel.
I have been taking Sundays off to concentrate on household chores and to give my mind a break from thinking about painting. So when I got in the studio on Monday morning, I was feeling sure that I was done with the series having finish the second color pass of the last painting on Saturday. Sitting in my chair looking at the paintings I began to feel an urge to address some small niggling issues that I had noticed as the paintings were drying.
At first I just picked up a brush and a little bit of my chromatic black mixture and was daubing a bit here and there. After a while it became clear to me that I was going to need to do a third color pass on almost every scene. As of today, I have nearly got through the bulk of the series, making small yet important adjustments here and there. Not to mention indulging in my current dry brushing addiction.
As a painter you have to really listen to your inner guidance and intuition to get comfortable with knowing when to stop working on the painting. This is one of the greatest challenges of being a landscape painter. I'm pretty sure that most of us that practice this art are never 100% satisfied with any painting we do. However, there needs to be an end. Followed by a new beginning of course, you always have a chance to do it again better.
My career as an illustrator has both helped and hindered me as a landscape painter. It has helped me in that the primary job of the commercial illustrator is to complete art for print or other purposes. If you work in a commercial studio you know what it means to have a deadline and you know (if you're good) exactly how much you can get away with tweaking an illustration before letting it go.
The way I've have been hindered with my background as illustrator is by my initial artistic (self) training that put a strong emphasis on detail and the importance of rendering. Rendering is what you do when you illustrate and over rendering is a common malaise. This is an issue that you can get away with in illustration work that is absolutely unacceptable in landscape painting. Excessive detail and over rendering are the death of almost any painting.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
A bit about 'Breaking Twilight' 5x7; I'm happy with this little study and it currently hangs in my bathroom at home. Fairly pleased with the larger 8x10 version that we will be discussing on Saturday also.
This is a motif that I took a photograph of in England several years back. I have painted it at a 12x18 size and also as a study, and as an 8x10 twice. I feel a great affinity with the sort of lone tree against a beautiful twilight sky motif and I'm sure this will not be the last time I paint something like this.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Breaking Twilight 5x7 (Detail) |
Golden Afternoon 8x10
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Golden Afternoon' 8x10.
Today's video narration follows the progression of this painting from its initial drawing stages, on up through the final glazes. The video has been sped up about 12 times faster than the painting was actually painted and also features my usual off-the-cuff, rambling narration, so please check it out.
I've been working on completing paintings this week. I'm feeling like I'm way behind because the folder that I'm saving these final videos of the finishes is titled, October-November and here we are in January. I'm thinking that I may go back to doing about 10 in a given series so that we are getting a more rapid turnaround. Those of you that follow this blog will be aware that I do my paintings in stages and these days, I go after about 15 to 18 motifs at a time.
I like doing this because it gives me time to look at the painting in between the various stages as it is drying, and to think about what it is that I'm going to do next. The downside of course is that as I increase the number of motifs it takes longer for a series to be completed. Back in 2011 when I first moved into the Quarry Art Center, after my initial one-man show at the Hangar Gallery, I attempted to do a series of 50 scenes.
Everything was fine until I left for vacation and came back only to discover that many of the paintings I had done were seriously in need of help. After that, I spent a long time working on fixing the paintings of the 50 that I could. Then I started to working on a series of 10 paintings. I think I'm going to get back into that soon.
On today's video I spoke a bit about dry brushing. Dry brushing is something that I have put a stronger emphasis on since completing the Hundred Days of Tonalism project. I really like dry brushing when it goes well. Dry brushing is essentially taking a brush lightly loaded with paint and dragging it across the surface of a painting that is dry. This can accentuate textures and is a great way of keeping a lot of what you've done before but also smoothing things out. This technique can add a lot of luminance to a painting but it can also be overdone and create monotony in areas that should be more varied. It's a bummer when things go monotonous.
I'm still learning about this technique and how to use it properly in my own work. I think the real key is to have the painting looking really good before you start in with the dry brushing and to use the dry brushing subtly and minimally. In other words, dry brushing is not going to help you save a painting that is in bad shape, but it can really enhance a painting that is already good. A good (successful) example of my current dry brushing technique would be the painting 'Evening River' 12x 12 that has been featured on this blog.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Golden Afternoon' 8x10; I'm happy with this painting and it's currently hanging up in my studio. I get a lot of nice comments about it and it is in an antique frame that I'm really fond of and will not be selling. I will sell this painting one day though, I'm sure of it because it gets so many positive comments. Also, I sold the study not long after painting it. So, I know the motif has appeal and attraction.
I've recently done another version of this scene in a horizontal format and I'm happy with it. It does not have the same golden quality that I did here, but it does have a nice pearlescent feeling.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Golden Afternoon by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's video narration follows the progression of this painting from its initial drawing stages, on up through the final glazes. The video has been sped up about 12 times faster than the painting was actually painted and also features my usual off-the-cuff, rambling narration, so please check it out.
I've been working on completing paintings this week. I'm feeling like I'm way behind because the folder that I'm saving these final videos of the finishes is titled, October-November and here we are in January. I'm thinking that I may go back to doing about 10 in a given series so that we are getting a more rapid turnaround. Those of you that follow this blog will be aware that I do my paintings in stages and these days, I go after about 15 to 18 motifs at a time.
I like doing this because it gives me time to look at the painting in between the various stages as it is drying, and to think about what it is that I'm going to do next. The downside of course is that as I increase the number of motifs it takes longer for a series to be completed. Back in 2011 when I first moved into the Quarry Art Center, after my initial one-man show at the Hangar Gallery, I attempted to do a series of 50 scenes.
Everything was fine until I left for vacation and came back only to discover that many of the paintings I had done were seriously in need of help. After that, I spent a long time working on fixing the paintings of the 50 that I could. Then I started to working on a series of 10 paintings. I think I'm going to get back into that soon.
On today's video I spoke a bit about dry brushing. Dry brushing is something that I have put a stronger emphasis on since completing the Hundred Days of Tonalism project. I really like dry brushing when it goes well. Dry brushing is essentially taking a brush lightly loaded with paint and dragging it across the surface of a painting that is dry. This can accentuate textures and is a great way of keeping a lot of what you've done before but also smoothing things out. This technique can add a lot of luminance to a painting but it can also be overdone and create monotony in areas that should be more varied. It's a bummer when things go monotonous.
I'm still learning about this technique and how to use it properly in my own work. I think the real key is to have the painting looking really good before you start in with the dry brushing and to use the dry brushing subtly and minimally. In other words, dry brushing is not going to help you save a painting that is in bad shape, but it can really enhance a painting that is already good. A good (successful) example of my current dry brushing technique would be the painting 'Evening River' 12x 12 that has been featured on this blog.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Golden Afternoon' 8x10; I'm happy with this painting and it's currently hanging up in my studio. I get a lot of nice comments about it and it is in an antique frame that I'm really fond of and will not be selling. I will sell this painting one day though, I'm sure of it because it gets so many positive comments. Also, I sold the study not long after painting it. So, I know the motif has appeal and attraction.
I've recently done another version of this scene in a horizontal format and I'm happy with it. It does not have the same golden quality that I did here, but it does have a nice pearlescent feeling.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Golden Afternoon 8x10 (Detail) |
Golden Afternoon 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is 'Golden Afternoon' 5x7.
You can follow the progression of this study as it was painted on today's video. The video also features my usual rambling narration, so please enjoy it.
I thought it would be good today to talk about failure. Failing is a part of doing art. If you are not failing once in a while you're not trying very hard. For some of us this can be immobilizing and a real detriment to doing art. I cannot say that I enjoy failing at all personally. I'm always left somewhat dumbstruck in a state of disbelief. How could this happen to me after all the good things?
This inability to deal with failure is more prevalent when you're young I think. I certainly had more of an issue with it when I was younger. Now I tend to take it in stride. I think this is because I have failed so many times now that I know that it is just a part of living and making art that is unavoidable.
When I am advising new painters or people interested in doing art, I always tell them not to worry at all about the quality of their work as they are learning. When you are starting out it makes no sense at all to be concerned about this, because failing is inevitable and it is the flipside of succeeding. You cannot have success without failure. A teacher of mine once told me that you had to do 2000 bad drawings before you ever did a good one.
I was speaking a bit about my experience working in the studio on today's video. I worked on three paintings today and the second one has been problematic for me (even before I started painting it). My intuition was telling me that there were problems with the motif and problems in the composition that I had not solved. I forged ahead though. All for nought.
You need to have some confidence as an artist. You need to be brave sometimes. This can be the difference between a good and a bad painting more often than you would think. Knowing that you're going to make it, knowing that you can make something work is very powerful.
Conversely, there are times that it doesn't matter how positive you are of success, failure is coming for you. Best to just take the bad ones as they come, and get up and keep moving forward. It is accumulated experience that adds to good work.
One thing I am happy about, as I progress as a painter ,I tend to do more good paintings than bad. I am learning more and more every day what it is that will work for me artistically. It's a good feeling when I've completed a 5x7 and I know that it will not work as a larger painting. It's an even better feeling when while working with the reference in the computer, I realize that the motif I am pursuing is not going to be a good painting and so abandon it before continuing.
Of course the best feeling of all, is when a painting comes out well and you knew it was going to be good even before you start painting it. It's can be easy to forget the process when things go well. Over time we forget most of the steps by which the painting was created.
The painting is now an object existing with us and moving through time with us. This does not seem to hold true of the bad paintings that I keep around. When I look at them I remember the struggle and the pain. And that is the reason why I destroyed today's failure and felt good about it.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Golden Afternoon 5x7; this is a painting that came together quite easily. The vertical format really works well with the motif and my decision to painted in a semi-monochromatic way was also pretty successful.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Golden Afternoon by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
You can follow the progression of this study as it was painted on today's video. The video also features my usual rambling narration, so please enjoy it.
I thought it would be good today to talk about failure. Failing is a part of doing art. If you are not failing once in a while you're not trying very hard. For some of us this can be immobilizing and a real detriment to doing art. I cannot say that I enjoy failing at all personally. I'm always left somewhat dumbstruck in a state of disbelief. How could this happen to me after all the good things?
This inability to deal with failure is more prevalent when you're young I think. I certainly had more of an issue with it when I was younger. Now I tend to take it in stride. I think this is because I have failed so many times now that I know that it is just a part of living and making art that is unavoidable.
When I am advising new painters or people interested in doing art, I always tell them not to worry at all about the quality of their work as they are learning. When you are starting out it makes no sense at all to be concerned about this, because failing is inevitable and it is the flipside of succeeding. You cannot have success without failure. A teacher of mine once told me that you had to do 2000 bad drawings before you ever did a good one.
I was speaking a bit about my experience working in the studio on today's video. I worked on three paintings today and the second one has been problematic for me (even before I started painting it). My intuition was telling me that there were problems with the motif and problems in the composition that I had not solved. I forged ahead though. All for nought.
You need to have some confidence as an artist. You need to be brave sometimes. This can be the difference between a good and a bad painting more often than you would think. Knowing that you're going to make it, knowing that you can make something work is very powerful.
Conversely, there are times that it doesn't matter how positive you are of success, failure is coming for you. Best to just take the bad ones as they come, and get up and keep moving forward. It is accumulated experience that adds to good work.
One thing I am happy about, as I progress as a painter ,I tend to do more good paintings than bad. I am learning more and more every day what it is that will work for me artistically. It's a good feeling when I've completed a 5x7 and I know that it will not work as a larger painting. It's an even better feeling when while working with the reference in the computer, I realize that the motif I am pursuing is not going to be a good painting and so abandon it before continuing.
Of course the best feeling of all, is when a painting comes out well and you knew it was going to be good even before you start painting it. It's can be easy to forget the process when things go well. Over time we forget most of the steps by which the painting was created.
The painting is now an object existing with us and moving through time with us. This does not seem to hold true of the bad paintings that I keep around. When I look at them I remember the struggle and the pain. And that is the reason why I destroyed today's failure and felt good about it.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Golden Afternoon 5x7 (Detail) |
Near the Creek 8x10
Hello welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's video follows the progression of this painting from the early drawing stage to the finished color. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check that out.
I was thinking today about what would define a painter as a Tonalist. First thing that comes to mind is the way that Tonalist paintings look. You could possibly get a good Tonalist feeling across while working alla prima (though this is not easy to do). More likely, to get a Tonalist quality you are going to be working in a manner of painting termed "indirect."
Indirect painting means that the painting is generally started with either a charcoal drawing or with some sort of under painting. The painting would then proceed through various stages where it was allowed to dry before being worked on again. This opens the way for several techniques that are part and parcel of the Tonalist method. Namely glazing, dry brushing or scumbling.
Applying indirect techniques may push your work into a Tonalist sort of feeling. But I was thinking today that a lot what defines a painting as Tonalist, is in the color choices that the artist makes as he's painting. Their pallet would feature more grays, mauves and darker colors in general. In other words, even if a painting is done directly all in one go, wet into wet paint, if the mindset of painter is of a Tonalist bent, the painting was still be Tonalism.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Near the Creek' 8x10 inches; This is the second time I painted in a large version this motif. In my reference there are several small trees the distant hills that I eliminated. I also tried to simplify the tree shapes. Were I to do this painting today, I would make them even simpler.
The painting does have a nice Tonalist quality, and is currently hanging up on a wall in my studio at the Quarry Art Center in Whangarei, New Zealand.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Near the Creek by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's painting is 'Near the Creek' 8x10.
Today's video follows the progression of this painting from the early drawing stage to the finished color. Also featured is my usual rambling narration, so please check that out.
I was thinking today about what would define a painter as a Tonalist. First thing that comes to mind is the way that Tonalist paintings look. You could possibly get a good Tonalist feeling across while working alla prima (though this is not easy to do). More likely, to get a Tonalist quality you are going to be working in a manner of painting termed "indirect."
Indirect painting means that the painting is generally started with either a charcoal drawing or with some sort of under painting. The painting would then proceed through various stages where it was allowed to dry before being worked on again. This opens the way for several techniques that are part and parcel of the Tonalist method. Namely glazing, dry brushing or scumbling.
Applying indirect techniques may push your work into a Tonalist sort of feeling. But I was thinking today that a lot what defines a painting as Tonalist, is in the color choices that the artist makes as he's painting. Their pallet would feature more grays, mauves and darker colors in general. In other words, even if a painting is done directly all in one go, wet into wet paint, if the mindset of painter is of a Tonalist bent, the painting was still be Tonalism.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Near the Creek' 8x10 inches; This is the second time I painted in a large version this motif. In my reference there are several small trees the distant hills that I eliminated. I also tried to simplify the tree shapes. Were I to do this painting today, I would make them even simpler.
The painting does have a nice Tonalist quality, and is currently hanging up on a wall in my studio at the Quarry Art Center in Whangarei, New Zealand.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Near the Creek by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 (Detail) |
Near the Creek 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Near the Creek' 5x7.
Today's video shows the progression of this study from inception to finish, accompanied by my usual rambling narration, so please check out the video.
I got back into painting yesterday after taking a hiatus to take care of other various chores around the studio. It's always a bit difficult getting started painting again after a break, but breaks can be valuable and also helpful to one's progression as an artist.
I have been doing some additional research for this book that I am working on about Tonalist painting for artists. I have purchased several books on landscape painting that I got way back when I first started doing oil painting by Kevin McPherson. I will be discussing those in another blog post.
The book I'd like to discuss today is called Landscape Painting Essentials by Johannes Vloothuis. This is a new book, having just been published in 2015 and I highly recommend it. I bought it not really knowing if it was good or not but after having scanned some of the reviews on Amazon and noticing it got a good rating, I went ahead.
Johannes covers a lot of great points about landscape painting and the challenges involved. He, like myself is a painter that has struggled to master this art and like myself, he is doing his best to share what he has learned.
I intend to do a more thorough reading and take some notes while actually reading the book but I thought it would be interesting to see what ideas left the greatest impression. Here below are some notes from my memory after having scanned the book last night:
Impressions from the book Landscape Painting Essentials by Johannes Vloothuis
These are my raw notes and I pass them along in the hope that some of you out there reading will get some value from it. If so, I recommend you make the investment in Johannes's book. I liked it a lot.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Near the Creek' 5x7; I originally painted this motif in 2010 after moving out to New Zealand. The painting is in my wife's office. I really like the scene and wanted to interpret it again, so I painted the study in June 2014 and the larger version (that we will be discussing on Saturday) in July 2014.
I enjoy revisiting motifs because it gives me a good way to measure my progress and evolution as a landscape painter.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Near the Creek by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's video shows the progression of this study from inception to finish, accompanied by my usual rambling narration, so please check out the video.
I got back into painting yesterday after taking a hiatus to take care of other various chores around the studio. It's always a bit difficult getting started painting again after a break, but breaks can be valuable and also helpful to one's progression as an artist.
I have been doing some additional research for this book that I am working on about Tonalist painting for artists. I have purchased several books on landscape painting that I got way back when I first started doing oil painting by Kevin McPherson. I will be discussing those in another blog post.
The book I'd like to discuss today is called Landscape Painting Essentials by Johannes Vloothuis. This is a new book, having just been published in 2015 and I highly recommend it. I bought it not really knowing if it was good or not but after having scanned some of the reviews on Amazon and noticing it got a good rating, I went ahead.
Johannes covers a lot of great points about landscape painting and the challenges involved. He, like myself is a painter that has struggled to master this art and like myself, he is doing his best to share what he has learned.
I intend to do a more thorough reading and take some notes while actually reading the book but I thought it would be interesting to see what ideas left the greatest impression. Here below are some notes from my memory after having scanned the book last night:
Impressions from the book Landscape Painting Essentials by Johannes Vloothuis
- Had some very good tips about painting trees, one of which was, make sure the shapes are irregular.
- Limit the amount of sky holes in your trees, a few placed close to the horizon will be sufficient to allow air into the trees but too many holes and it will confuse the viewer.
- Do not put anything into your painting that does not absolutely need to be there, always strive for as much simplicity as possible.
- I was thinking today as I was pondering this idea of simplicity, how it would be good to apply it to any series of shapes in your painting and thus would be a good way to avoid that sort of patchy small brush stroke effect you can get especially as that happens when you overwork a painting.
- Avoid what I tend to call, all in a row paintings, where everything in the landscape seems to fall on one line he made some very good points as well about avoiding straight lines in the landscape altogether. As an example, he did a Lake shore that was very straight but inserted a tree trunk.
- Address strong parallel verticals in your painting, for example; tree trunks and he gave examples of tree trunks that he distorted and made irregular that were quite straight in the reference.
- Make shapes irregular. He gave some great examples of areas in the photo reference that were very smooth and symmetrical shapes that he made irregular. This is something that I can definitely improve in my own painting, especially when painting roads, streams and paths.
- In regards to painting in the landscape in plein air, he made some good points about how colors in nature tend to be oversaturated and yet not deviate much in the actual tone. So you will have one shade of green with different permutations of saturation. And that this is something that needs to be toned down in landscape painting.
- A really good example he used was taking a green from nature and mixing it to somewhere close to the color of a martini olive, that would be more pleasing to the eye than an extremely bright green.
- Also mentioned was the use of reds to modify green tones in the landscape and bring them down into harmony.
- He made a very good point about how it is very easy to achieve harmony in a landscape painting if there are no greens at all.
These are my raw notes and I pass them along in the hope that some of you out there reading will get some value from it. If so, I recommend you make the investment in Johannes's book. I liked it a lot.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Near the Creek' 5x7; I originally painted this motif in 2010 after moving out to New Zealand. The painting is in my wife's office. I really like the scene and wanted to interpret it again, so I painted the study in June 2014 and the larger version (that we will be discussing on Saturday) in July 2014.
I enjoy revisiting motifs because it gives me a good way to measure my progress and evolution as a landscape painter.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Near the Creek by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 (Detail) |
Afternoon Meadow 5x5
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Afternoon Meadow' 5x5".
Our video today follows the progression of this study from its initial drawing stages to a glorious finish. Also featured, is my usual rambling narration, so please check the video out.
New Year, new blog post. I confess that I attempted to use Dragon NaturallySpeaking to transcribe my video narration for this blog. Unfortunately that did not work out, what Dragon gave me was one enormous block of text. It didn't take long to realize that it would take me longer to edit that into something that was readable than to just write a fresh blog post.
Today, I'm going to write about some of the things that I hope to accomplish in this shiny New Year 2016. Not just with this blog but with my painting and also my career as an artist. As far as the blog is concerned, I would like to continue imparting information of value with every blog post that I do. I respect valuable content in the websites, articles and other media that I engage with, and so it makes sense for me to put meaningful content out into the world. Today's blog post is somewhat of an exception to this general rule. This will be another good year for sharing information with you my gentle reader.
As I've stated before on this blog, I am attempting to pull materials together and spend some time creating a book about Tonalist painting for the artist. It's crossed my mind that I might use this blog as a place where I can bring together ideas and start to mold them into the sort of text that I need to write to do this book. This concept is a lot like the idea of doing a study prior to doing a larger painting. Time will tell if this idea pans out or not.
Another thing that I would like to do this year is to have some more nice exhibitions of my work. I had a really good show at the Hangar Gallery in Kamo last year and I learned a lot about how I wish to present my actual paintings to the public moving forward. This is not an area of my art career that I've been especially good at. Like most artists I prefer to paint and marketing is not something that I enjoy as much. That will change somewhat this year.
I want to continue doing progressively larger paintings that are successful. I've made some great strides this year but I know that I can do better. One of the biggest realizations I had last year was that I needed to work with far larger brushes than I had been previously when scaling my motifs up to larger sizes. I plan on going even further in that direction this year.
I hope to do some more extensive traveling this year and I look forward to the impact and enhancement that it will give my work. I will be traveling to the United States as well as Italy, France and England.
I guess that's enough for today. Like I said on the video narration I was very close to skipping out on today's blog post because I've been in semi-holiday mode (with the rest of New Zealand). We will resume our normal blog schedule on Wednesday, January 6 so stay tuned.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Afternoon Meadow' 5x5"; as I stated in the video this motif exists only as a small study. After I completed it I did do a larger drawing on an 8x8" wood panel, but before moving on with the color I opted out.
I've been looking at the study on the table at the front of my studio where I have it on display and I actually really like this painting and I'm wondering if it might not have made a good large painting as well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Afternoon Meadow by M Francis McCarthy, 5x5 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Our video today follows the progression of this study from its initial drawing stages to a glorious finish. Also featured, is my usual rambling narration, so please check the video out.
Today, I'm going to write about some of the things that I hope to accomplish in this shiny New Year 2016. Not just with this blog but with my painting and also my career as an artist. As far as the blog is concerned, I would like to continue imparting information of value with every blog post that I do. I respect valuable content in the websites, articles and other media that I engage with, and so it makes sense for me to put meaningful content out into the world. Today's blog post is somewhat of an exception to this general rule. This will be another good year for sharing information with you my gentle reader.
As I've stated before on this blog, I am attempting to pull materials together and spend some time creating a book about Tonalist painting for the artist. It's crossed my mind that I might use this blog as a place where I can bring together ideas and start to mold them into the sort of text that I need to write to do this book. This concept is a lot like the idea of doing a study prior to doing a larger painting. Time will tell if this idea pans out or not.
Another thing that I would like to do this year is to have some more nice exhibitions of my work. I had a really good show at the Hangar Gallery in Kamo last year and I learned a lot about how I wish to present my actual paintings to the public moving forward. This is not an area of my art career that I've been especially good at. Like most artists I prefer to paint and marketing is not something that I enjoy as much. That will change somewhat this year.
I want to continue doing progressively larger paintings that are successful. I've made some great strides this year but I know that I can do better. One of the biggest realizations I had last year was that I needed to work with far larger brushes than I had been previously when scaling my motifs up to larger sizes. I plan on going even further in that direction this year.
I hope to do some more extensive traveling this year and I look forward to the impact and enhancement that it will give my work. I will be traveling to the United States as well as Italy, France and England.
I guess that's enough for today. Like I said on the video narration I was very close to skipping out on today's blog post because I've been in semi-holiday mode (with the rest of New Zealand). We will resume our normal blog schedule on Wednesday, January 6 so stay tuned.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Afternoon Meadow' 5x5"; as I stated in the video this motif exists only as a small study. After I completed it I did do a larger drawing on an 8x8" wood panel, but before moving on with the color I opted out.
I've been looking at the study on the table at the front of my studio where I have it on display and I actually really like this painting and I'm wondering if it might not have made a good large painting as well.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Afternoon Meadow 5x5 (Detail) by M Francis McCarthy |
Evening River 12x12
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Evening River' 12x12".
Today's video shows you the progression of this painting. The video is sped up about 15 times faster than I actually painted. The video narration features my usual rambling on an assortment of issues that pertain to my painting process and life in general, so please check it out.
I've been recently addressing the challenge of scaling up my work to larger sizes by using larger brushes.
When I first started oil painting I was using what I thought were large brushes but I was also using various small pointed sable type brushes. With these brushes I was making a lot of tiny stipple like strokes. If you look at some of my earliest work you see that some of it is actually very detailed. This is a holdover from my many years as an illustrator. Not to say that the pursuit of excessive detail is a good thing (even for illustrators) but it was something that I was interested in for a part of my life and career as an artist.
As I progressed with my work, I became increasingly aware of how excessive detail was hurting my painting. Ultimately, it is best to express yourself in oils with a broader more gestural approach that is more expressive of emotion and subsumes detail to the larger shapes and forms of the landscape. This puts the emphasis on values and color and leaves the simulation and scanning of detail to the imagination of the paintings viewer. I've been working with this aspect of painting quite a lot, especially as I become more experienced, and developed as a landscape painter.
As I discussed on the video I've been experiencing an interesting phenomenon in regard to the size of brush that I'm painting with. I often feel that I'm using a large brush while doing the painting, but after looking at the videos of my painting process, I'm often struck that I should have used a much larger brush than I chose.
What's interesting about this is that I've sort of noticed it for a year now and I did not actually jump up to a significantly larger brush. One of the reasons for this issue coming to a head, is that I am doing progressively larger work now than I was in 2014.
In late 2013, I decided that I was going to paint only 8x8 and 8x10 paintings. For this reason, it's taken me jumping up to larger panel sizes to finally begin seeing the need for the use of larger brushes. What I've been doing with this last group of paintings that I've been working on, is using a number four where I would have used a number two brush, a number six where I would have used a number four brush, a number eight where I would have used a number six and, mostly importantly and significantly, I am using a number ten where previously the largest brush I ever used was a number eight.
You can see have moved up in size overall and the results I'm getting are far more satisfying. I'm excited about my progress since making this change so I thought it would be cool to share that with you. It'll be a couple of months before I have actually composited videos of some of the paintings I've been doing this month because of the way I work in an extended arc of 14 to 18 motifs in a given painting cycle.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Evening River 12x12"; I'm very happy with this painting and it was a bit touch and go for a while there but ultimately I succeeded in creating the type of painting that I'm interested in doing at this point in my career.
I like the simplified forms and moody quality of this painting and also I'm pleased with the interlaced textural quality of the brushwork. This painting strikes a good balance, between freshness and finish.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Evening River 12x12 by M Francis McCarthy, 12x12" Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's video shows you the progression of this painting. The video is sped up about 15 times faster than I actually painted. The video narration features my usual rambling on an assortment of issues that pertain to my painting process and life in general, so please check it out.
I've been recently addressing the challenge of scaling up my work to larger sizes by using larger brushes.
When I first started oil painting I was using what I thought were large brushes but I was also using various small pointed sable type brushes. With these brushes I was making a lot of tiny stipple like strokes. If you look at some of my earliest work you see that some of it is actually very detailed. This is a holdover from my many years as an illustrator. Not to say that the pursuit of excessive detail is a good thing (even for illustrators) but it was something that I was interested in for a part of my life and career as an artist.
As I progressed with my work, I became increasingly aware of how excessive detail was hurting my painting. Ultimately, it is best to express yourself in oils with a broader more gestural approach that is more expressive of emotion and subsumes detail to the larger shapes and forms of the landscape. This puts the emphasis on values and color and leaves the simulation and scanning of detail to the imagination of the paintings viewer. I've been working with this aspect of painting quite a lot, especially as I become more experienced, and developed as a landscape painter.
As I discussed on the video I've been experiencing an interesting phenomenon in regard to the size of brush that I'm painting with. I often feel that I'm using a large brush while doing the painting, but after looking at the videos of my painting process, I'm often struck that I should have used a much larger brush than I chose.
What's interesting about this is that I've sort of noticed it for a year now and I did not actually jump up to a significantly larger brush. One of the reasons for this issue coming to a head, is that I am doing progressively larger work now than I was in 2014.
In late 2013, I decided that I was going to paint only 8x8 and 8x10 paintings. For this reason, it's taken me jumping up to larger panel sizes to finally begin seeing the need for the use of larger brushes. What I've been doing with this last group of paintings that I've been working on, is using a number four where I would have used a number two brush, a number six where I would have used a number four brush, a number eight where I would have used a number six and, mostly importantly and significantly, I am using a number ten where previously the largest brush I ever used was a number eight.
You can see have moved up in size overall and the results I'm getting are far more satisfying. I'm excited about my progress since making this change so I thought it would be cool to share that with you. It'll be a couple of months before I have actually composited videos of some of the paintings I've been doing this month because of the way I work in an extended arc of 14 to 18 motifs in a given painting cycle.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about Evening River 12x12"; I'm very happy with this painting and it was a bit touch and go for a while there but ultimately I succeeded in creating the type of painting that I'm interested in doing at this point in my career.
I like the simplified forms and moody quality of this painting and also I'm pleased with the interlaced textural quality of the brushwork. This painting strikes a good balance, between freshness and finish.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Evening River 12x12 (Detail) |
Evening River 5x5 study
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is 'Evening River' 5x5.
On today's video you can follow the progression of this study from its inception to its glorious finish, accompanied by my usual rambling narration,so please check that out.
On the video narration today, I was talking about how I visited an online site that I used to sell work on. If you're curious as to the name of that site please check out the video, I do not wish to mention the name in print. I had a good experience with these folks and they do have some nice work on their site, however much of the work that they feature is what I would term at an amateur or semi-pro level.
I thought it would be good to talk today about some of the ways that an artist can endeavor to bring their work up to a professional level. As I stated on the video narration, the two ways that many artists seem to fall short of this goal are; poor composition and poor color.
Of these two ways that many artists works are falling short, I would say that poor composition is by far the most prevalent. I suppose that the reason for this is because many modern painters are utilizing photographic reference while creating their paintings.
I've talked extensively on this blog about the inherent dangers of photographic reference so I won't belabor my point today, other than to point out that because of the filtering system that our minds uses to look at reality, we create scenes in our mind that are harmonious because we are filtering out much of the egregious detail and other distracting aspects of any scene in front of us. The same is true of photography in that most photos are in focus across the entire field of vision, and for that reason photographs are scanned by the human eye in the same way that nature is.
It is incumbent on the painter of landscape to do this filtering for the viewer before completing their painting. This seems like such an obvious thing to state but you would be amazed how many paintings I see that fail because of this very simple fact. For an artist to create a good painting they must design the scene, not just copy what's in front of them.
This is an area that even artists doing professional quality work will struggle with. Composition is a harsh mistress and she is difficult to master. Even knowing everything that I have learned over the last eight or so years of landscape painting, I still regularly make errors of judgment. Fortunately I have developed working methods that help me to catch these errors. Chief among these is working through a series of motifs over a period of time as opposed to trying to complete one painting every week (for example). The reason this is a valuable working practice is that it gives you time and distance from your initial effort to evaluate and critique your work before finishing the painting.
The previous post on this blog is all about composition and there are entire books about this topic. Not that reading a book is going to help you that much really. The only way to really get good at composition is by doing a lot of paintings.
The second way I see many modern painters fall short of a professional quality in their work, is flat, dull and boring color. This is an epidemic of major proportions as far as I can see with many modern landscape paintings. Some of the paintings on the aforementioned online site that I thought had good composition, failed when it came to their coloration. Which is of course very sad and I wish that it would be otherwise.
One of the reasons why I do this blog and share freely what information I have learned, is to try and not only raise my own profile as a painter but also to open the eyes of other artists that have missed some of the important lessons of past Masters.
Any painter worth their salt needs to study the work of those that have come before, or fall prey to attempting to reinvent a wheel that has been thoroughly invented. Much of the work I see these days speaks for itself in this regard. Many painters out there have not taken this simple lesson to heart and are indeed very occupied with wheel invention. This is keeping them from achieving a high level of quality in their painting and breaking through into professional level work.
In some ways mastering color is more difficult than composition, in that you must have a well grounded and intuitive sense of aesthetics to really do good color. Whereas good composition is achieved through trial and error over an artists lifetime, color can be far harder to master especially when you attempt to move into the more sublime realms of the greatest colorists that have ever worked. Studying the color of some of these masters is very valuable in developing your own internal sense of aesthetics. This is one of the reasons why I spent the better part of 2015 copying Tonalist masterworks.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening River' 5x5; as I stated on the video I'm very happy with this study. I am pleased with the composition, feel and coloration of the scene and also it's larger sibling that we will be discussing on Saturday. Sometimes you know when the painting is going to work out and sometimes you are pleasantly surprised while you are creating it. In the case of 'Evening River' it was while I was painting the study that I could tell it was going to be good.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Evening River by M Francis McCarthy, 5x5 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
On today's video you can follow the progression of this study from its inception to its glorious finish, accompanied by my usual rambling narration,so please check that out.
On the video narration today, I was talking about how I visited an online site that I used to sell work on. If you're curious as to the name of that site please check out the video, I do not wish to mention the name in print. I had a good experience with these folks and they do have some nice work on their site, however much of the work that they feature is what I would term at an amateur or semi-pro level.
I thought it would be good to talk today about some of the ways that an artist can endeavor to bring their work up to a professional level. As I stated on the video narration, the two ways that many artists seem to fall short of this goal are; poor composition and poor color.
Of these two ways that many artists works are falling short, I would say that poor composition is by far the most prevalent. I suppose that the reason for this is because many modern painters are utilizing photographic reference while creating their paintings.
I've talked extensively on this blog about the inherent dangers of photographic reference so I won't belabor my point today, other than to point out that because of the filtering system that our minds uses to look at reality, we create scenes in our mind that are harmonious because we are filtering out much of the egregious detail and other distracting aspects of any scene in front of us. The same is true of photography in that most photos are in focus across the entire field of vision, and for that reason photographs are scanned by the human eye in the same way that nature is.
It is incumbent on the painter of landscape to do this filtering for the viewer before completing their painting. This seems like such an obvious thing to state but you would be amazed how many paintings I see that fail because of this very simple fact. For an artist to create a good painting they must design the scene, not just copy what's in front of them.
This is an area that even artists doing professional quality work will struggle with. Composition is a harsh mistress and she is difficult to master. Even knowing everything that I have learned over the last eight or so years of landscape painting, I still regularly make errors of judgment. Fortunately I have developed working methods that help me to catch these errors. Chief among these is working through a series of motifs over a period of time as opposed to trying to complete one painting every week (for example). The reason this is a valuable working practice is that it gives you time and distance from your initial effort to evaluate and critique your work before finishing the painting.
The previous post on this blog is all about composition and there are entire books about this topic. Not that reading a book is going to help you that much really. The only way to really get good at composition is by doing a lot of paintings.
The second way I see many modern painters fall short of a professional quality in their work, is flat, dull and boring color. This is an epidemic of major proportions as far as I can see with many modern landscape paintings. Some of the paintings on the aforementioned online site that I thought had good composition, failed when it came to their coloration. Which is of course very sad and I wish that it would be otherwise.
One of the reasons why I do this blog and share freely what information I have learned, is to try and not only raise my own profile as a painter but also to open the eyes of other artists that have missed some of the important lessons of past Masters.
Any painter worth their salt needs to study the work of those that have come before, or fall prey to attempting to reinvent a wheel that has been thoroughly invented. Much of the work I see these days speaks for itself in this regard. Many painters out there have not taken this simple lesson to heart and are indeed very occupied with wheel invention. This is keeping them from achieving a high level of quality in their painting and breaking through into professional level work.
In some ways mastering color is more difficult than composition, in that you must have a well grounded and intuitive sense of aesthetics to really do good color. Whereas good composition is achieved through trial and error over an artists lifetime, color can be far harder to master especially when you attempt to move into the more sublime realms of the greatest colorists that have ever worked. Studying the color of some of these masters is very valuable in developing your own internal sense of aesthetics. This is one of the reasons why I spent the better part of 2015 copying Tonalist masterworks.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Evening River' 5x5; as I stated on the video I'm very happy with this study. I am pleased with the composition, feel and coloration of the scene and also it's larger sibling that we will be discussing on Saturday. Sometimes you know when the painting is going to work out and sometimes you are pleasantly surprised while you are creating it. In the case of 'Evening River' it was while I was painting the study that I could tell it was going to be good.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Evening River 5x5 (Detail) |
By the Stream 8x8
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'By the Stream' 8x8.
Today's video features the progression of this painting over several different painting sessions. The video also features my usual rambling narration so please check that out.
As I've stated on this blog I have been working on a book about painting in a Tonalist manner. A big part of my research for this book has been going back again to a work by Birge Harrison called Landscape Painting. This book is nearly a hundred years old. It contains great quantities of vital information about the Tonalist method that helped me a lot when I first read it several years ago.
As part of my research I have been taking some notes while rereading this book and I thought it would be interesting to share those notes with you today. Birge has broken his book up into various chapters about the different aspects of landscape painting like values, pigment, brushwork and composition. Today I'm going to share my notes regarding his chapter on composition. Please note that these are not his words verbatim, they are my rephrased and abbreviated notes.
Composition
As you can see there is some extremely valid and pertinent advice here from ol' Birge. These are the bits from his book that I made notes about because these are the aspects that I would communicate to any beginning painter and that I am endeavoring to remember myself with each work that I create.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'By the Stream' 8 x 10; I'm happy with the way this painting turned out it has good colors, a nice atmosphere and strong composition.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| By the Stream by M Francis McCarthy, 8x8 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Today's video features the progression of this painting over several different painting sessions. The video also features my usual rambling narration so please check that out.
As I've stated on this blog I have been working on a book about painting in a Tonalist manner. A big part of my research for this book has been going back again to a work by Birge Harrison called Landscape Painting. This book is nearly a hundred years old. It contains great quantities of vital information about the Tonalist method that helped me a lot when I first read it several years ago.
As part of my research I have been taking some notes while rereading this book and I thought it would be interesting to share those notes with you today. Birge has broken his book up into various chapters about the different aspects of landscape painting like values, pigment, brushwork and composition. Today I'm going to share my notes regarding his chapter on composition. Please note that these are not his words verbatim, they are my rephrased and abbreviated notes.
Composition
- There are millions of good compositions in the world.
- All that is necessary are the eyes to see them.
- There are no fixed rules.
- Many of best rules of composition are expressed in the negative.
- Don’t try to say two things on one canvas.
- There must be one point of interest, concentrate on that and sacrifice everything else.
- The human mind can only receive on impression at a time.
- Don’t divide your picture in spaces of equal size and proposition.
- Don’t put horizon line in the center of the picture – same for center of interest.
- Lower horizon is generally better than high.
- Don’t have anything in the picture that does not explain itself.
- Treat nature with respect but do not let her rule you.
- A picture that needs a title should never have been painting.
- Don’t let the dominant line in your picture end in mid-air – use the sky to help.
- There are no rules of composition that cannot be broken – except don’t paint two pictures on one canvas.
- Don’t crowd your canvas/composition – let your tree or mountain have breathing space. Keep them away from the edge of the frame.
- Don’t put in a single unnecessary feature.
- Keep your eyes open, nature provides the best unexpected compositions.
As you can see there is some extremely valid and pertinent advice here from ol' Birge. These are the bits from his book that I made notes about because these are the aspects that I would communicate to any beginning painter and that I am endeavoring to remember myself with each work that I create.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'By the Stream' 8 x 10; I'm happy with the way this painting turned out it has good colors, a nice atmosphere and strong composition.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| By the Stream 8x8 (Detail) |
By the Stream 5x5
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is By the Stream 5x5.
As well as showing the progression of today's study, today's video features some of my usual rambling on a variety of topics including what I've been working on lately in the studio so please check that out.
I'd like today about drawing and how it relates to painting. This is a subject that I've covered in previous blog posts but it is so important to painting that it's hard to belabor the topic. Drawing is essentially the grammar of art. Without good drawing good painting is impossible. In many ways it is accurate to say that painting is nothing more than colored drawing.
There are some aspects of painting that require an inherent sense of aesthetics. drawing is not one of these though. Drawing can be learned by anybody. At it's core drawing is measuring and is a natural human ability. This is not to say that drawing is easy to master or easy to do, it requires quite a lot of practice to become good at. The best landscape artists have spent generally 4 to 5 years concentrating on drawing.
Surprisingly, one of the best ways to learn drawing as it relates to landscape painting, is not by drawing the landscape. The best way to learn drawing is by drawing people. This has been true since the time of the old Masters. The reason why drawing people is a better education than drawing the landscape, is because it is easy to draw a tree incorrectly and have it still work. However, to draw a person convincingly you must get the proportions correct as well as many other aspects that pertain to the figure. This knowledge translates to drawing almost more than anything else.
The type of drawing that is most useful for landscape painting is called mass drawing. This is a type of drawing that relies more on shapes than on line. I do mass drawing for my paintings using a brush and paint but you can also use the side of a stick of charcoal or even a bit of graphite that has more width than sharpness.
Mass drawing is not the type of drawing that most people think of when they think of drawing. But it is very useful for landscape, because it allows you to concentrate on the large shapes and masses whereas the fine line of a pencil or pen, means that you have to indicate the shapes either by using many lines together or just in silhouette.
I did nothing but draw for almost 15 years. Most of the reasons for this was because of my interest in comic books and illustration and not in painting so much. After many years of working as an illustrator, I became more familiar with the concept of mass drawing and also painting.
Many people come into my studio and say that they would like to paint or do art of some type. I always encourage people to begin with a regular drawing practice. This is not to say that you cannot do paintings at the same time, but without a good sense of proportion, line and shape, it is going to be very difficult to create any type of painting that people would actually want to look at.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'By the Stream' 5x5; as I stated in today's video I'm very happy with this study and I am also pleased with the larger version of the motive that we will be talking about on Saturday. I think that there is a good arrangement of values and also a pleasant composition that works very well in this study.
Unlike several of the paintings that we presented so far in this recent series of blog posts, 'By the Stream' 5x5 is a very recent work and highly representative of the direction that my work has taken since completion of my 100 days of Tonalism project.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| By the Stream by M Francis McCarthy, 5x5 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
As well as showing the progression of today's study, today's video features some of my usual rambling on a variety of topics including what I've been working on lately in the studio so please check that out.
I'd like today about drawing and how it relates to painting. This is a subject that I've covered in previous blog posts but it is so important to painting that it's hard to belabor the topic. Drawing is essentially the grammar of art. Without good drawing good painting is impossible. In many ways it is accurate to say that painting is nothing more than colored drawing.
There are some aspects of painting that require an inherent sense of aesthetics. drawing is not one of these though. Drawing can be learned by anybody. At it's core drawing is measuring and is a natural human ability. This is not to say that drawing is easy to master or easy to do, it requires quite a lot of practice to become good at. The best landscape artists have spent generally 4 to 5 years concentrating on drawing.
Surprisingly, one of the best ways to learn drawing as it relates to landscape painting, is not by drawing the landscape. The best way to learn drawing is by drawing people. This has been true since the time of the old Masters. The reason why drawing people is a better education than drawing the landscape, is because it is easy to draw a tree incorrectly and have it still work. However, to draw a person convincingly you must get the proportions correct as well as many other aspects that pertain to the figure. This knowledge translates to drawing almost more than anything else.
The type of drawing that is most useful for landscape painting is called mass drawing. This is a type of drawing that relies more on shapes than on line. I do mass drawing for my paintings using a brush and paint but you can also use the side of a stick of charcoal or even a bit of graphite that has more width than sharpness.
Mass drawing is not the type of drawing that most people think of when they think of drawing. But it is very useful for landscape, because it allows you to concentrate on the large shapes and masses whereas the fine line of a pencil or pen, means that you have to indicate the shapes either by using many lines together or just in silhouette.
I did nothing but draw for almost 15 years. Most of the reasons for this was because of my interest in comic books and illustration and not in painting so much. After many years of working as an illustrator, I became more familiar with the concept of mass drawing and also painting.
Many people come into my studio and say that they would like to paint or do art of some type. I always encourage people to begin with a regular drawing practice. This is not to say that you cannot do paintings at the same time, but without a good sense of proportion, line and shape, it is going to be very difficult to create any type of painting that people would actually want to look at.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'By the Stream' 5x5; as I stated in today's video I'm very happy with this study and I am also pleased with the larger version of the motive that we will be talking about on Saturday. I think that there is a good arrangement of values and also a pleasant composition that works very well in this study.
Unlike several of the paintings that we presented so far in this recent series of blog posts, 'By the Stream' 5x5 is a very recent work and highly representative of the direction that my work has taken since completion of my 100 days of Tonalism project.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| By the Stream 5x5 (Detail) |
Late Afternoon Road 8x10
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Late Afternoon Road' 8x10.
In today's video narration, I am basically just rambling about things I have on my mind at the moment. It seems that is a pattern I've been settling into for the videos. Feel free to mute the volume if this is distracting or annoying to you. For my part, I think it's preferable to releasing the videos completely silent. Though I've done a lot of music that I could use instead, most of it is not eight minutes long. So if you're interested in hearing a bit of a ramble while seeing how this painting was created, please check out today's video.
A few days ago on Wednesdays blog post, I posted my notes from the book Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison. The reason I'm making notes from this book is that I intend to use (or more accurately re-use) many of his ideas in my own book. The reason for this is that Birge Harrison basically gives us a thorough examination and explanation of why Tonalism is superior to the modes of landscape painting that preceded, and ran concurrently with it.
I will not be copying his book, but I do intend to expound upon and incorporate many of his ideas into a my modern book on how to create Tonalist paintings. I will not be posting up any my notes from that research today, mostly because they are on my wife's computer and she is busy delivering a baby right now.
He has a chapter about a concept that he calls refraction. This is something that I would like to talk about today. Refraction is also referred to in his book as "Lost Edges". The concept of refraction basically refers to the way that the human eye blurs everything it is perceiving that is not actually directly in its field of focus. Many people are not aware that they only perceive a very small section of their field of vision as being sharp with cleanly defined edges at any given time. What we perceive as being a reality with sharp edges is an image that is been created in the mind from a plethora of composite images collected in rapid succession by the retina.
The human eye cannot perceive everything within its field of vision in focus all at once. This is something that cameras are capable of doing, but not humans. It's very important to know this if you are a landscape painter otherwise you can create paintings that are uncomfortable to look at and that greatly resemble photographs.
This is something I've seen a lot of modern painters do and I blame poor arts education for this. Many representational artists have to teach themselves how to draw and paint because representational art fell out of favor for so many years. It is natural to assume that because something looks a certain way and it is in the photograph, that is correct to paint it the way the photograph depicts it. Because of this lack of proper education many artists have to reinvent the wheel if they wish to paint or, they do not even know what knowledge they are lacking.
The correct way to paint a landscape is to be aware of the concept of refraction and to apply it to the places where two masses of color meet (i.e. where a tree overlaps the sky) the exception to this, would be the focal point of interest in the scene which also is (generally) where the strongest amount of contrast in the painting would be.
Past Masters of refraction are Whistler and Corot. If you observe their paintings you will see that most objects are diffused with only certain elements being brought into a sharper focus. This is a technique that you can definitely get carried away with (to the point where the painting will come off like a poorly focused photograph if you're not careful), but in general, it's better to err on the side of more refraction rather than less. If everything in your painting is sharp and in focus, it's highly likely that your painting is a failure.
I've talked about this lost edges/refraction concept in the past but I have not use the term refraction. That is a term that Birge Harrison has coined and I think it is a good one. Many artists utilize refraction unconsciously in their painting and for the most part, I would say I do it almost automatically myself.
There are several ways to accomplish the softening of hard edges in a painting. You can brush the two colors together so that you create a blurred effect that way. Or, the way that I prefer to do it, by mixing an intermediate color and painting that over where the two masses meet. Another technique that I employ is using a palette knife to scratch a little bit away from the harsh edges that are overlapping, so that some diffusion is created. You can also create good effects by the way you drag your paintbrush across the painting surface.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Late Afternoon Road' 8x10; as I stated in the video I am happy with the way this painting turned out and it greatly resembles the 5x7 study which I am also happy with. I feel there is a good balance in this painting between sky and earth and also the composition is complementary and dynamic. I'm sure at some point in the future I will revisit this motif in a larger size.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Late Afternoon Road by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Pane |
In today's video narration, I am basically just rambling about things I have on my mind at the moment. It seems that is a pattern I've been settling into for the videos. Feel free to mute the volume if this is distracting or annoying to you. For my part, I think it's preferable to releasing the videos completely silent. Though I've done a lot of music that I could use instead, most of it is not eight minutes long. So if you're interested in hearing a bit of a ramble while seeing how this painting was created, please check out today's video.
A few days ago on Wednesdays blog post, I posted my notes from the book Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison. The reason I'm making notes from this book is that I intend to use (or more accurately re-use) many of his ideas in my own book. The reason for this is that Birge Harrison basically gives us a thorough examination and explanation of why Tonalism is superior to the modes of landscape painting that preceded, and ran concurrently with it.
I will not be copying his book, but I do intend to expound upon and incorporate many of his ideas into a my modern book on how to create Tonalist paintings. I will not be posting up any my notes from that research today, mostly because they are on my wife's computer and she is busy delivering a baby right now.
He has a chapter about a concept that he calls refraction. This is something that I would like to talk about today. Refraction is also referred to in his book as "Lost Edges". The concept of refraction basically refers to the way that the human eye blurs everything it is perceiving that is not actually directly in its field of focus. Many people are not aware that they only perceive a very small section of their field of vision as being sharp with cleanly defined edges at any given time. What we perceive as being a reality with sharp edges is an image that is been created in the mind from a plethora of composite images collected in rapid succession by the retina.
The human eye cannot perceive everything within its field of vision in focus all at once. This is something that cameras are capable of doing, but not humans. It's very important to know this if you are a landscape painter otherwise you can create paintings that are uncomfortable to look at and that greatly resemble photographs.
This is something I've seen a lot of modern painters do and I blame poor arts education for this. Many representational artists have to teach themselves how to draw and paint because representational art fell out of favor for so many years. It is natural to assume that because something looks a certain way and it is in the photograph, that is correct to paint it the way the photograph depicts it. Because of this lack of proper education many artists have to reinvent the wheel if they wish to paint or, they do not even know what knowledge they are lacking.
The correct way to paint a landscape is to be aware of the concept of refraction and to apply it to the places where two masses of color meet (i.e. where a tree overlaps the sky) the exception to this, would be the focal point of interest in the scene which also is (generally) where the strongest amount of contrast in the painting would be.
Past Masters of refraction are Whistler and Corot. If you observe their paintings you will see that most objects are diffused with only certain elements being brought into a sharper focus. This is a technique that you can definitely get carried away with (to the point where the painting will come off like a poorly focused photograph if you're not careful), but in general, it's better to err on the side of more refraction rather than less. If everything in your painting is sharp and in focus, it's highly likely that your painting is a failure.
I've talked about this lost edges/refraction concept in the past but I have not use the term refraction. That is a term that Birge Harrison has coined and I think it is a good one. Many artists utilize refraction unconsciously in their painting and for the most part, I would say I do it almost automatically myself.
There are several ways to accomplish the softening of hard edges in a painting. You can brush the two colors together so that you create a blurred effect that way. Or, the way that I prefer to do it, by mixing an intermediate color and painting that over where the two masses meet. Another technique that I employ is using a palette knife to scratch a little bit away from the harsh edges that are overlapping, so that some diffusion is created. You can also create good effects by the way you drag your paintbrush across the painting surface.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Late Afternoon Road' 8x10; as I stated in the video I am happy with the way this painting turned out and it greatly resembles the 5x7 study which I am also happy with. I feel there is a good balance in this painting between sky and earth and also the composition is complementary and dynamic. I'm sure at some point in the future I will revisit this motif in a larger size.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Late Afternoon Road (Detail) |
Late Afternoon Road 5x7
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's study is 'Late Afternoon Road' 5x7.
In today's video, I talk a little bit about my experience with my quality of painting output, learning to listen to your intuition and follow it consistently get better paintings, so please check that out.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it on this blog yet, but I am working on a book for artists about Tonalist painting and ways for the modern painter to learn about and create work in this vital mode of landscape painting. No promises on when this book will be coming out, but I spent a lot of time in the past year sharing my knowledge on this blog about what I've learned about this particular field of endeavor. It has occurred to both me and my wife, Marie (my editor) that a lot of that effort could be turned into a book that people can use and enjoy.
It's not usually my style to talk about projects that I'm working on before I've actually completed them, however I intend to use this blog as a place to work out various areas of the book, so those of you that have been with me for a while and are still reading, will get a preview in advance of many of the research, concepts, techniques and text that will be included in this book.
In the process of doing some research for this proposed book, I was re-reading a book written by Birge Harrison that I have mentioned on this blog many times called 'Landscape Painting. This book was written back in 1920 or so and is still in print, so that will give you some idea of how vital and incisive the information this book contains is. Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison was one of the books I read that put me onto the most vital and important innovations of the painters in the late 19th century.
This is a period in art that is often overlooked and that is one of the reasons that I was unaware of Tonalism until I actually started painting, visiting museums and researching the history of landscape painting. Unlike Impressionism, Tonalism has yet to make this sort of comeback that it deserves.
I am convinced that this comeback is already with us in many ways and that is one of the reasons why I have been writing this blog and putting my videos out. I feel that it is the least I can do to help promote and bring attention to the greatest, highest and most excellent form of landscape painting that I have discovered.
For your edification and enjoyment here area few of my notes from Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison:
 |
| Late Afternoon Road by M Francis McCarthy, 5x7 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
In today's video, I talk a little bit about my experience with my quality of painting output, learning to listen to your intuition and follow it consistently get better paintings, so please check that out.
I'm not sure if I mentioned it on this blog yet, but I am working on a book for artists about Tonalist painting and ways for the modern painter to learn about and create work in this vital mode of landscape painting. No promises on when this book will be coming out, but I spent a lot of time in the past year sharing my knowledge on this blog about what I've learned about this particular field of endeavor. It has occurred to both me and my wife, Marie (my editor) that a lot of that effort could be turned into a book that people can use and enjoy.
It's not usually my style to talk about projects that I'm working on before I've actually completed them, however I intend to use this blog as a place to work out various areas of the book, so those of you that have been with me for a while and are still reading, will get a preview in advance of many of the research, concepts, techniques and text that will be included in this book.
In the process of doing some research for this proposed book, I was re-reading a book written by Birge Harrison that I have mentioned on this blog many times called 'Landscape Painting. This book was written back in 1920 or so and is still in print, so that will give you some idea of how vital and incisive the information this book contains is. Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison was one of the books I read that put me onto the most vital and important innovations of the painters in the late 19th century.
This is a period in art that is often overlooked and that is one of the reasons that I was unaware of Tonalism until I actually started painting, visiting museums and researching the history of landscape painting. Unlike Impressionism, Tonalism has yet to make this sort of comeback that it deserves.
I am convinced that this comeback is already with us in many ways and that is one of the reasons why I have been writing this blog and putting my videos out. I feel that it is the least I can do to help promote and bring attention to the greatest, highest and most excellent form of landscape painting that I have discovered.
For your edification and enjoyment here area few of my notes from Landscape Painting by Birge Harrison:
- Pure landscape art is a recent phenomenon from 1800 to present.
- Old Masters knew little about the landscape. Landscape to them was a backdrop to human activity.
- The landscapes they did paint were false in colour and devoid of luminosity and atmosphere.
- Constable was the first to go out and paint nature, followed the Barbizon Artists; Corot, Rousseau and Millet.
- Then by the Impressionists, Monet, Pissaro and Sisley.
- Nature is monochrome until human eyes see it.
- The Human eye resembles a camera. Rods in the retina perceive value while cones perceive colour.
- Some people see more colour than others.
- It is in their colour that an artists temperament is most clearly seen.
- Colour, like music ignites emotion and stimulates sensation.
- The highest forms of art stimulates the imagination and suggest more than they express.
- Each colour has its own qualities, red is exciting, green is soothing and blue is clarifying.
- Eliminating the brightest/harshest colours from your scene creates a more harmonious effect.
- The cool colours, blue, green, mauve, violet and all the delicate interleaving greys are restful. These are the best tones for landscape art.
- Powerful notes of red, yellow and orange should come in only as a spot here and there.
- Outdoor light is warm and shadows are cool.
- Indoors with Northern light in the studio, light is cool and shadows are warm.
- Without personality, no good art is possible.
- Art cannot manufactured.
- Without vibration in a picture, there can be no effect of light.
- Griselle, Black, White and Sepia or Umber, then glazing for colour.
- Mixing even tones and applying to the canvas like a house painter in flat masses.
- Spot and dash method (used by the Impressionists)
- Cool Tones painted over warm undertones (Tonalism) also referred to as broken colour.
As you can see there is valuable information and concepts here and I thought it would be interesting to share them with you in a raw format. Some of these ideas will be making into the text of my book.
A bit about 'Late Afternoon Road' 5 x 7: as I stated in the video narration today, I'm very happy with this painting and I knew it would be good from the moment I took the photographic reference. An interesting phenomenon which I am relying on more and more to save me time and repainting.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Late Afternoon Road 5x7 (Detail) |
Coming out of the Glade 8x10
Hello and welcome to Tonalist paintings by M Francis McCarthy.
Today's painting is 'Coming out of the Glade' 8x10.
Why should Tonalism be important to modern people? Many people are still not aware of this mode of painting, at least not in a conscious way. Most Americans have been exposed to quite a few Tonalist works, but a lot of what they've seen is just outside their normal field of awareness.
I ponder this question about Tonalism quite often. Unfortunately, I am not very well-qualified to answer it because Tonalism is very important to me, so it's difficult to verbalize a perspective that would not consider it at all.
I am confronted with ignorance of Tonalism on a regular basis at my studio at the Quarry Art Center in Whangarei, New Zealand. Most of the people that come into my studio are not familiar with Tonalism at all because it is not a mode of painting that was very popular here in New Zealand. That is not to say (by the way) that they do not appreciate my paintings, or do not remark favorably upon them and even purchase them on occasion .
I am considering writing a book about painting in the Tonalist style. Since I began contemplating this idea, I have been going through my personal library looking at various instructional books on painting that I have acquired over the years. One of my favorite early books on painting I purchased is called the Painterly Approach by Bob Rohm. This is an excellent book that I highly recommend to anybody interested in learning about painting .
In looking over the book recently, it occurred to me how many valuable lessons I received from Bob that inform my painting approach to this day. What is also obvious is that many modern painters like Bob are after a certain immediate quality in their work. Being a modern artist myself I can appreciate this. However a great deal of what defines my work as Tonalist is the extra stages that my paintings go through after that initial immediate color block in. Stages that take the work further from the standard (and currently popular) immediate approach
These extra stages include glazing, scumbling and dry brushing. All three of these techniques are solidly in the school of non direct painting. Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will have read at length about why I employ these techniques and what it is that I feel is valuable about them in relation to my work and, landscape painting in general.
Videotaping my painting process has given me ample opportunity to consider my painting approach as well as all the places that I could have stopped at and did not. For the most part, my initial color block in greatly resembles the work of painters like Bob Rohm. There was a time that I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, in that I would try to get a lot of that Tonalist quality across in my first color pass without any additional steps.
As a matter fact, sometimes that does occur. When it does happen it's because I have harmonized my initial palette so well that I've achieved a good tonal quality. To be honest though, these days I'm far more interested in how I can develop a painting using the aforementioned techniques of glazing, scumbling and dry brushing. If done well, these techniques can enhance my initial color block in without completely eliminating the freshness and immediacy of that first color pass.
I think that a lot of what creates a real Tonalist feeling in a painting is the approach to finishing the work.
Another aspect is the reference itself that I am using for the painting. In my case, my photographic reference has been enhanced and augmented extensively to help me achieve my Tonalist agenda thoroughly and definitely. I discussed the preparation of my reference somewhat on this blog, it is an aspect of my work that is absolutely crucial to getting the results that I aim for in my painting.
I'm not sure in this book that I am preparing how much of that preparatory work I will get into because it's a topic almost worthy of a book of its own.
Most of my reference preparation is done in the digital domain with Photoshop utilizing my 25 years of experience as a commercial artist working with digital tools and media. This is an entirely different mindset than many people interested in oil painting have, although I could be mistaken in that assumption.
If you'd like to weigh in with an opinion on this topic please contact me via email through my website.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Coming out of the Glade'; I'm happy with this painting, the actual painting has a very nice quality to it that doesn't completely come through in this photograph. Although the photograph shows a good representation of the painting, there is a quality in the actual work that is subtle and nice.
One thing I like about this painting is its overall sepia quality. This is something that I like to play with once in awhile, just like I play with doing bluish nocturnes or golden sunsets where the landscape has been turned entirely orange.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Coming out of the Glade by M Francis McCarthy, 8x10 Oil Painting on Wood Panel |
Why should Tonalism be important to modern people? Many people are still not aware of this mode of painting, at least not in a conscious way. Most Americans have been exposed to quite a few Tonalist works, but a lot of what they've seen is just outside their normal field of awareness.
I ponder this question about Tonalism quite often. Unfortunately, I am not very well-qualified to answer it because Tonalism is very important to me, so it's difficult to verbalize a perspective that would not consider it at all.
I am confronted with ignorance of Tonalism on a regular basis at my studio at the Quarry Art Center in Whangarei, New Zealand. Most of the people that come into my studio are not familiar with Tonalism at all because it is not a mode of painting that was very popular here in New Zealand. That is not to say (by the way) that they do not appreciate my paintings, or do not remark favorably upon them and even purchase them on occasion .
I am considering writing a book about painting in the Tonalist style. Since I began contemplating this idea, I have been going through my personal library looking at various instructional books on painting that I have acquired over the years. One of my favorite early books on painting I purchased is called the Painterly Approach by Bob Rohm. This is an excellent book that I highly recommend to anybody interested in learning about painting .
In looking over the book recently, it occurred to me how many valuable lessons I received from Bob that inform my painting approach to this day. What is also obvious is that many modern painters like Bob are after a certain immediate quality in their work. Being a modern artist myself I can appreciate this. However a great deal of what defines my work as Tonalist is the extra stages that my paintings go through after that initial immediate color block in. Stages that take the work further from the standard (and currently popular) immediate approach
These extra stages include glazing, scumbling and dry brushing. All three of these techniques are solidly in the school of non direct painting. Those of you that have followed this blog for a while will have read at length about why I employ these techniques and what it is that I feel is valuable about them in relation to my work and, landscape painting in general.
Videotaping my painting process has given me ample opportunity to consider my painting approach as well as all the places that I could have stopped at and did not. For the most part, my initial color block in greatly resembles the work of painters like Bob Rohm. There was a time that I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, in that I would try to get a lot of that Tonalist quality across in my first color pass without any additional steps.
As a matter fact, sometimes that does occur. When it does happen it's because I have harmonized my initial palette so well that I've achieved a good tonal quality. To be honest though, these days I'm far more interested in how I can develop a painting using the aforementioned techniques of glazing, scumbling and dry brushing. If done well, these techniques can enhance my initial color block in without completely eliminating the freshness and immediacy of that first color pass.
I think that a lot of what creates a real Tonalist feeling in a painting is the approach to finishing the work.
Another aspect is the reference itself that I am using for the painting. In my case, my photographic reference has been enhanced and augmented extensively to help me achieve my Tonalist agenda thoroughly and definitely. I discussed the preparation of my reference somewhat on this blog, it is an aspect of my work that is absolutely crucial to getting the results that I aim for in my painting.
I'm not sure in this book that I am preparing how much of that preparatory work I will get into because it's a topic almost worthy of a book of its own.
Most of my reference preparation is done in the digital domain with Photoshop utilizing my 25 years of experience as a commercial artist working with digital tools and media. This is an entirely different mindset than many people interested in oil painting have, although I could be mistaken in that assumption.
If you'd like to weigh in with an opinion on this topic please contact me via email through my website.
Cheers,
M Francis McCarthy
Landscapepainter.co.nz
A bit about 'Coming out of the Glade'; I'm happy with this painting, the actual painting has a very nice quality to it that doesn't completely come through in this photograph. Although the photograph shows a good representation of the painting, there is a quality in the actual work that is subtle and nice.
One thing I like about this painting is its overall sepia quality. This is something that I like to play with once in awhile, just like I play with doing bluish nocturnes or golden sunsets where the landscape has been turned entirely orange.
To see more of my work, visit my site here
 |
| Coming out of the Glade 8x10 (Detail) |