Another lesson learned

Putting on a warm yellow wash over the entire picture from the previous post was enough to tone down the contrast and create a feeling of an evening glow. Who hasn't seen an evening like this?!

 

Afterglow, acrylic on canvas, 8"x10"

Live and Learn!

Took a half day workshop yesterday with Bob Burridge at the 2013 Art of the Carolinas trade show in Raleigh. The topic was "Loose and juicy landscapes" which is much of what Bob's paints, though he does delve into other subjects. The best part for me was learning about subtractive painting. For example, going from this.........

.........to this. Just by negative painting - that is, taking away everything that doesn't belong!

Starry Night

Starry Night, Acrylic on canvas, 24"x36"

Blazing Sunset

The third and last in a series of knife paintings, Blazing Sunset was a challenge because of the complexity of colors I wanted to use. The challenge came from my wish to keep the colors as pure as possible and allow some optical mixing to occur on the paper without letting them get muddy. I also wanted to create some sense of movement that is often typical of fiery sunsets as they get to their peak. Keeping the knife strokes in the sky at a diagonal enhanced the feeling of movement such as might happen in a real sunset.

Blazing Sunset, Acrylic on 300lb watercolor paper, 11"x14", $75 (unframed)

Fast and loose

The term 'fast and loose' usually conjures up visions of sloppiness. Not so in impressionist painting where the emphasis on speed was often driven by the artist's desire to capture the moment. The rapid pace and minimal reworking of the paint gave rise to a style that suggests energy and movement that is hard to dissociate from the impressionist style.

Summer Scene was done in just about half an hour against a roughly sketched in composition. The only brushstrokes used in this piece are ones that either put the paint down on the paper or those that instantly led to an impression of movement. I made no attempt to smooth the paint or even out the color. Personally I think the sky is the most interesting aspect of this picture!

Summer Scene, Acrylic on 140lb watercolor paper, 9"X12", $70 (unframed)

Minimal brushstrokes painting style

An exercise I have found quite useful in developing a looser style of painting is to do a painting with the fewest strokes possible. This requires minimal working of paint on the surface leading to a freshness of color that can be easily destroyed in just a few more strokes.

In Reflections, I have used a rather common scene of trees reflected in the water to demonstrate a minimal brushstrokes approach. The palette is restricted (ultramarine blue, sap green, cadmium yellow and titanium white) and I used the biggest brush I could force myself to pick! After all, this is a small canvas and the temptation was to reach for a small brush. The bigger brush allowed for the canvas to be covered quickly and with the self-imposed limit on brushstrokes, there was no choice but to leave the paint alone after it was down on the canvas.

Reflections, Acrylic on canvas board, 5”X7” (Not for sale)