Transition

The snow has pretty much disappeared around Glen Williams.  The Credit River looked like this recently.

February 27, 2010, Credit in the Glen

Now this was a snowy grey day.  Subtle, moody, and quite colourful if you were to look through your own eyes.  Nonetheless, Winter with its special painting conditions (simplification enforced) has been pushed aside.

Just as in painting the light side to the shadow side there is a transition season.  This is now upon us.

March 28, 8 am, 2009, Credit in the Glen - frost, no snow

Here the runoff is in full swing.  This photo is in early morning sunlight.  The trees, river, grass, weeds are all mud.  So, if you like to paint muddy, this is your chance.  But hurry, you have about three weeks for this transition. Then it hits you.  So get prepared for the monster (Dianne's favourite).

Early May 2009, Credit in the Glen, just green, thousands of 'em

Just when you were getting on to Winter painting, you go through greys right smack into green, slime green to start.  Green everywhere.  Many artists pack up their bags to wait for Fall.  You can prepare for this by mixing on your palette.  I use Viridian Green as my palette green if I use one green.  It can be bent to all sorts of warm and cool greens by adding Cadmium yellows (lemon, pale, middle, deep) or orange, red, violet and of course white.  The possibilities are endless - that is the problem.  But what you see is never what comes directly out of the tube.  You can get garish very easily with green.  The green season is quite long, moving from the delicate early spring greens to robust greens.  Then they begin to tire in early summer going deeper yellow and greying in a progression toward Fall.  So get ready, study, practice and get your eyes revved up.

Tambourine Solo

I had never seen an electric tambourine, never mind an incredible 10 minute solo.  Friday night Jesse Cook presented still another twist in his eclectic and innovative musical journey.  Massey Hall rocked to a Rumba Party ending.  Then the subway stalled and I remembered that I had an early hour journey painting in the remnants of snow in the morning that was fast approaching.

You can never tell what painting will be like after a late night.  Vic and Randi sought out a tree to hide behind to escape the wind on a beautiful Spring day in Hockley.  Yes, Spring, the Turkey Buzzards spoke three weeks ago.  I set up in a ditch and decided to paint the snow drift that protected me.  Ha!  A short picture box challenge.

Tambourine Solo, 11x14, Oil on Canvas

Creating depth is the issue in the short box (like a figure study or a still life).  Second to that there is the illusion of bright light.  After all, we have but pigment to light with.  Primary tools used here; gradation, colour, temperature and value contrast, edge work.

The painting was done with bristle brushes - #16, #8, #6, all bristle, a palette knife (generously used) and Gel Medium.

The paint on the palette - tada!  Old Holland Cobalt Blue, Old Holland Viridian, Cadmium Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Middle, Cadmium Red Middle and Alizarin.  Painting with Old Holland is a real treat, but it makes you nervous.  I usually just look at the few tubes I have.  What if I screw up with THAT paint?

Oiling Out

I like to paint wet in wet.  This forces you to become sensitive to your brush pressure and the paint viscosity.  Doing this allows you to use techniques usually done wet on dry.  When I do get into a situation where the paint dries before I am able to complete the painting, I either repaint areas so I can continue wet in wet or "oil out" to put the painting back into its as - painted condition.  This not only means wet but it also means that the various pigments look like they were just applied.  When a painting dries, the binder in the "fat" pigments are absorbed at a different rate than their "lean' cousins leaving the surface looking blotchy and the colour saturation uneven.  Oiling out normalizes this look so your eye has something consistent to see when continuing the painting process.

Oiling Out - a 12x12 in the studio

The process consists of the following steps;

1.     Apply Alkyd medium and Odourless Mineral Spirits mixed 50% each with a brush

2.     Let the mixture sit for a few minutes to make a bond with the underpainting

3.     Rub off the excess mixture with a lint free rag

4.     Continue the painting process

This procedure puts a layer of binder in the middle of the finished paint layers.  This is superior to using retouch varnish which deposits a layer of medium.

Here is the painting at the next stage of work.

Corn Snow Dreaming, 12x12, Oil on Canvas

If required, the process can be repeated until the painting arrives at its destination - the original (or modified) concept.

The Interview

The photographer / reporter arrived.  "Just do what you do, pretend I'm not here."  For a plein air painter this sounds easy.  I am interrupted and questioned often when painting out doors.  Somehow it isn't quite the same under the lights and under question - "What are you doing now".


I showed Ted the start off for me in the studio, a tiny thumbnail.

Thumbnail, Bend on the Beaver

This sketch was done on site in the Beaver Valley with the ski club in the background and the Beaver River in front.  Not much to go on you might say.   Exactly, can't be a slave to copying.  Have to bring my memory into play.  This includes my many hours spent on site week after week.  That training is essential to seeing colours and abstract shapes.  The sun was early morning coming from the south east - the left side of the thumbnail.  The light was warm.

Squeeze Out

I squeezed out the pigments for my palette.  To my Ultramarine Blue, Viridian, Cad Yellow Light, and Alizarin, I added Cad Yellow Deep, Cad Orange, Cad Red middle, and Mineral Violet.  No earth tones. Lots of white.  I stay away from using white as long as I can.

Wash, and begin Mass In

The wash was a loosely mixed slop of Viridian and Alizarin.  Lots of Odourless Mineral Spirits.  A # 16 flat bristle brush makes this fast work.  You can see that the pigments separated and somehow some yellow appeared (green = yellow and blue).  The white mixed with the wet under coat to produce a base for the snow (it is never white).  Already I see possibilities that would never show if I copied a photo.

The questions kept coming.  "I've never seen someone paint like that.  It is quite interesting.  I see why you don't refer to a photo.  What's next?"

Mass In

The basic shapes have been massed in.  The sky is next.  This prepares the canvas for considerable painting to come, all wet in wet.  The process is closer to sculpture than drawing - but yes, drawing is important.  At this stage the values of the shapes are in but they will be compared one to the other and adjusted accordingly.  Same for the colour.  Here I am painting directly without a value underpainting.

I just begin the mass in of the sky.

Building on the Mass In

 Ted announces he has enough material.  "What's next?"  Next is the brushwork and the comparison of the colours and values in the masses including more mass in work in the sky where there is a gradation already appearing.  Then inferred detail in selected areas and a final edge adjustment.

A Vic Outing

So we met at Tims and headed north out of Glen Williams.  I managed to pass off the responsibility of picking a spot on to Terry and Monica.  Stress.


We stopped on a black top road.  A no no, and we paid for it.  Live and learn.


There were numerous motifs from the Credit River with ice patterns in the water, to an interesting forest covered hill with strange sky behind a low spot, and a farm house set back considerably from the road surrounded by trees.  I chose the farm house.


My concept for the painting was to make the farm house interesting in its surrounding cluster of trees - evergreen in back and some colourful leafless rounded trees in front.  I would use colour in view of the overcast conditions (vs light if the sun had been out) and I would make the house a bit mysterious with the front trees partially covering it.  The star of the play was to be the farm house with the trees partially covering it the supporting actors.  Everything else was to be background - don't look there is what I would try to make the painting say.

Farm in the Glen, 10x12, Oil on Linen on Board

The farmhouse has the lightest light and the darkest dark.  The vast amount of colour is there.  The paint is thickest there and there are quite a number of layers.  The hardest / sharpest edge is there.  The hi lites and the accents are there.


The painting was done with a #14 bristle filbert, a #8 Bristle filbert, a #6 bristle filbert, and a palette knife.


The palette consisted of the four primaries Ultramarine Blue, Viridian, Cadmium Yellow Light, Alizarin, with the addition of Cadmium Orange and Mineral Violet.


Comments welcome.

Paint Applying Tools

It is always interesting for me to visit artists studios.  They apply paint and do other studio tasks in an endless variety of ways.  Below are the tools I currently use most frequently for applying paint.  There are a few other tools I use frequently in addition to these.  First is the palette knife (somehow omitted from the picture) second is a set of fingers - that first painting tool is alive and well.  I use it a lot.  Third is the lowly rag or paper towel also used in most paintings.

Brushes on the Studio Palette

Here is a description from left to right.  Let me start by saying that the first five brushes plus a palette knife, fingers and rags is what I use en plein air.  I also use these in the studio along with the larger and smaller brushes on the right.  En plein air I frequently use either the largest brush only or add to it one brush like the red one.  The first and second brushes are larger bristle brushes - a #14 flat and a #12 filbert.  These brushes are great for laying in a wash and for establishing the main shapes and their edges determined by squinting.  After the wash these shapes can be established in a few minutes thus trapping the shadows and other features that move most quickly.  I have found that using these larger brushes alone develops your ability to use the six sides of the brush effectively so that small shapes/strokes can also be done with the large brush.  This keeps you out of copying and detail mode.  The red brush is a #8 bristle flat.  If I use this brush it is to avoid cleaning the large brush and get a clean family of colours.  It also allows me to dry brush and cover a large area quickly.  The forth brush is a worn #6 bristle filbert.  Next in the line up should have been a palette / painting knife.  These can be used to mix clean colours and to create any number of knife strokes giving variety to the texture or the surface.  Most of the time these knife strokes must be modified to avoid hard edges and other undesirable effects.  Knives are easy to clean and therefore help with speed without hurrying.  Out of doors I use a one inch knife with a rounded point.  In the studio I use several sizes of knives as the painting gets larger and larger.  The next dark handled brush is a Langnickel sable.  It is very soft.  I abuse this brush in a number of ways from edge modification to drawing to loading it with substantial paint and poking and ramming the brush into the canvas.  Good stuff, but they wear quickly.  The yellow handled brush with the blue mark on the glass behind the tiny bristle is another specialty brush.  It started out as a #6 bristle filbert.  It became a two bristle wonder after using hot water to wash it.  The glue melted and the bristles came out in a clump leaving behind this "whisker" brush that can be loaded with paint to do special jobs.  Never throw out these relics, they might make interesting marks.  Then we move on the the short handled bristle brushes.  In general I use these on larger paintings and go larger as needed.  Some of thse come from the hardware store.

You will notice a few different brands of brushes here.  I use what I find works best.  Usually you get what you pay for.  I wash the brushes carefully at the end of each painting session using warm water and mild liquid hand soap.  Then I form the bristles and clamp them to train them so I can make the marks I desire.

Willie or Fred?

Last Friday we painted in the Hockley Valley area.  After a quick lunch and warm up we stopped on the south side of a deep valley.  The sun was still hidden.  So more training the eye for cool light and overcast.  Over the outcrop I was painting, some movement in the sky attracted my eye.  A pair of Turkey Buzzards circled lazily in a thermal.  No wings a flappin'.  They slowly moved their spiral over to us to see if we were road kill.  Then it occurred to me.  I had not seen these birds in the sky while painting all winter.  Later I referenced the trusty bird book and found that the Buzzards should be south.  Is winter over?  Wiarton Willie said no, six weeks to go.  Better get a painting.

Even Closer, 10x12, Oil on Linen on Board

This is what I got done before packing in at 3:30.  The first linen on panel I have painted since buying a few yards.  It took a lot of preparation, even for this tight weave smooth linen.  The paint goes on beautifully but the surface is very abrasive.  I will prepare more door skin this way.

This morning I gave this painting a few more strokes.  It didn't paint itself against the wall over the weekend.  The soft touch of the foliage covering the left side of the barn I left alone.  I made the outcrop less symmetrical, added paint to the sky in a value and colour gradation, and treated the foreground snow simply to add some depth.  I'll get a picture when the paint dries a bit to eliminate any reflection.

After the tightness of the morning paint I was able to use the #14 bristle filbert to paint the majority of this from the beginning wash through the end saving a clean #8 for finish dry brushing.

The palette was Ultramarine, Mineral Violet, Viridian, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Orange, Alizarin and Titanium White.