There are some plein air purists who only paint in the open air, starting and finishing their paintings on site.
The best part of what I paint always happens in the studio.
But it always depends on what I bring back from my painting expeditions. I work on small studies outdoors, usually a primed 10" x 12" MDF panel.
In this case I ended up with three studies from the same scene, done over a few days, at the same time of day, in similar weather and lighting conditions. Laying them out together, I saw they could be the basis of a larger painting.
I took a 24" x 36" canvas, tinted it with Light Red, and gridded it up with drawing pins and cotton thread to match the grid on a printout of a photograph of the studies.
I copied the drawing from the printout to the canvas, removed the thread, and was left with a canvas ready to be painted.
Painting from the studies worked well, but the sky was still not decided on.
I made several colour studies of the kind of sky that would suit the painting. I looked at Constable's paintings, and took ideas from him: the dark grey cloud cut by the top edge of the picture, to give scale and dramatic impact; cumulus clouds in perspective to give depth and movement; different textures and lighting effects, to give convincing scale and realism.
The sky had to complement the land below it and match and reinforce the mood of the painting. I was after the cool, windy, damp atmosphere of an early autumn day, with the threat of rain in the air, but the sunshine still coming through the clouds.
I blocked in a thin scumble of pale blue to cover the light red underpainting, and decided to leave the painting alone for a while.
After a week's break I resumed painting, first on the shrub on the left, working into a thin layer of oil and turpentine. This made the paint application sticky and draggy, which allowed some fancy pants painting, stippling and dragged lines which helped to create the illusion of foliage and twigs.
The next day I began to lay in the sky. I stole some dark clouds from Constable's 'The Lock'. The grey, the darkest in the sky, was a surprisingly light number 3 on a 10 step scale between black and white. I mixed it with French Ultramarine and Raw Umber and Titanium White, and started painting the clouds...
And after a while I took a rag and wiped off all I'd done. It wasn't good enough to work as well as I wanted.
I also worked on the foreground, using the photographic reference shots I'd had printed. Note, at no time did I use any brush smaller than a quarter inch flat. Always work from big to small, and stop well before you end up fiddling with a one hair brush. If it looks good at viewing distance, it's good enough.
I was particularly happy with the painting of the bare hawthorn bush on the far right. To paint this, I laid a patch of sky blue, and while it was still wet worked in some wet brush strokes of a dark grey mixed from French Ultramarine and Burnt Umber, fanning them with a large flat brush to make a grey bush shape. When this was dry, I worked back into the grey with more of the sky blue, to carve out masses of twigs. It worked well, much better than trying to paint tiny individual twigs and branches.
The second attempt at the sky went well. I oiled out the whole area using liquin thinned with turpentine, then worked into this with transparent washes of the same #3 grey, applied with a rag in big shapes, then brushed out to make clouds.
Keeping the sky transparent, using what is essentially a watercolour wash technique, only in oil paint, is a technique that worked. As did using a rag and big brushes to avoid getting fiddly.
Later, I took a long look at the unfinished painting and made a list of the parts that needed work. I tackled these one at a time until I was satisfied with all of them.
Except a large painting never is really done. You can always find something you want to change, but at some point it's best to let go and put it aside. I ordered a frame online and started to think about the next painting.
When this painting is thoroughly dry, it'll have to be varnished. That's a topic for another day.
Support:
Winsor & Newton Linen Canvas, 36" x 24"
Paints used:
Titanium White
Cadmium Red
Spectrum Orange
Cadmium Lemon
Yellow Ochre
Opaque Oxide of Chromium
French Ultramarine
Raw Sienna
Burnt Umber
Mediums:
Turpentine
Linseed Oil
Liquin
Brushes:
2" Household Gloss Brush
1" Hog Bristle
Nylon Flats, half, quarter, and eighth inch
Various fan brushes and riggers
Rags
Fingers
Frame:
Bramptons Gold 72mm moulding, number 684117246.
The best part of what I paint always happens in the studio.
But it always depends on what I bring back from my painting expeditions. I work on small studies outdoors, usually a primed 10" x 12" MDF panel.
In this case I ended up with three studies from the same scene, done over a few days, at the same time of day, in similar weather and lighting conditions. Laying them out together, I saw they could be the basis of a larger painting.
I took a 24" x 36" canvas, tinted it with Light Red, and gridded it up with drawing pins and cotton thread to match the grid on a printout of a photograph of the studies.
I copied the drawing from the printout to the canvas, removed the thread, and was left with a canvas ready to be painted.
I made several colour studies of the kind of sky that would suit the painting. I looked at Constable's paintings, and took ideas from him: the dark grey cloud cut by the top edge of the picture, to give scale and dramatic impact; cumulus clouds in perspective to give depth and movement; different textures and lighting effects, to give convincing scale and realism.
The sky had to complement the land below it and match and reinforce the mood of the painting. I was after the cool, windy, damp atmosphere of an early autumn day, with the threat of rain in the air, but the sunshine still coming through the clouds.
I blocked in a thin scumble of pale blue to cover the light red underpainting, and decided to leave the painting alone for a while.
After a week's break I resumed painting, first on the shrub on the left, working into a thin layer of oil and turpentine. This made the paint application sticky and draggy, which allowed some fancy pants painting, stippling and dragged lines which helped to create the illusion of foliage and twigs.
The next day I began to lay in the sky. I stole some dark clouds from Constable's 'The Lock'. The grey, the darkest in the sky, was a surprisingly light number 3 on a 10 step scale between black and white. I mixed it with French Ultramarine and Raw Umber and Titanium White, and started painting the clouds...
And after a while I took a rag and wiped off all I'd done. It wasn't good enough to work as well as I wanted.
I also worked on the foreground, using the photographic reference shots I'd had printed. Note, at no time did I use any brush smaller than a quarter inch flat. Always work from big to small, and stop well before you end up fiddling with a one hair brush. If it looks good at viewing distance, it's good enough.
I was particularly happy with the painting of the bare hawthorn bush on the far right. To paint this, I laid a patch of sky blue, and while it was still wet worked in some wet brush strokes of a dark grey mixed from French Ultramarine and Burnt Umber, fanning them with a large flat brush to make a grey bush shape. When this was dry, I worked back into the grey with more of the sky blue, to carve out masses of twigs. It worked well, much better than trying to paint tiny individual twigs and branches.
The second attempt at the sky went well. I oiled out the whole area using liquin thinned with turpentine, then worked into this with transparent washes of the same #3 grey, applied with a rag in big shapes, then brushed out to make clouds.
Keeping the sky transparent, using what is essentially a watercolour wash technique, only in oil paint, is a technique that worked. As did using a rag and big brushes to avoid getting fiddly.
Later, I took a long look at the unfinished painting and made a list of the parts that needed work. I tackled these one at a time until I was satisfied with all of them.
Except a large painting never is really done. You can always find something you want to change, but at some point it's best to let go and put it aside. I ordered a frame online and started to think about the next painting.
When this painting is thoroughly dry, it'll have to be varnished. That's a topic for another day.
Support:
Winsor & Newton Linen Canvas, 36" x 24"
Paints used:
Titanium White
Cadmium Red
Spectrum Orange
Cadmium Lemon
Yellow Ochre
Opaque Oxide of Chromium
French Ultramarine
Raw Sienna
Burnt Umber
Mediums:
Turpentine
Linseed Oil
Liquin
Brushes:
2" Household Gloss Brush
1" Hog Bristle
Nylon Flats, half, quarter, and eighth inch
Various fan brushes and riggers
Rags
Fingers
Frame:
Bramptons Gold 72mm moulding, number 684117246.
