My Favorite Way to Study Composition

                   

We know that with practice most artists will get a handle on “how” to paint the parts of a picture. But the composing of pictures is a different and more personal undertaking…to be honest, a rewarding and life-long investigation. 

The Power of Pattern

 

In my ongoing search to learn how to compose (organize a painting well), I realize that I’m drawn to certain pictures by some vague attraction that I can’t account for. I eventually realized that pattern was the power at work. More fully, the abstract pattern of lights and darks of a painting has a strong effect on what attracts the eye. 

The 4 Value Study

Naturally, if composition does have such an impact, let’s try to understand how that works. In working out a solution I decided that study of paintings I admired and which spoke to me was a great place to begin. So, sketchbook in hand, I studied paintings in books and museums to see what I could learn that way. 

What I’m about to offer here is the simple method which resulted, which I call the 4 Value Study.  This method can be helpful  in two important ways. First in studying the work of artists and paintings you admire, and second, in then beginning your own paintings. 

The 4 Value Study and it’s benefits

Among the benefits are

  •  it can be done in a short amount of time, (in my example here, about 25 minutes) with simple materials, and in your personal sketchbook. This enables you to easily review. 
  • The exercise positions you to retrace the original artist’s steps, because you start with the “big pieces” that make up the underlying structure. This puts you “looking over their shoulder” in the decision process.
  • With only 4 values to work with, you simply must  ignore details and and instead learn to see the painting simply in terms of a pattern…that is an intentional arrangement of big values and big shapes. 

 Once it’s familiar, you’ll want to see and plan your own paintings by values and shapes.  In my case, it’s second nature before commencing work on an actual piece, and it lends our work more strength and clarity because you’ve effectively visualized essential decisions before starting the final work.

Where do I start? 

For starters, copy a good painting from a good source….it’s said “we are what we eat”, so feed on the best.   Find a painting that you admire… a painting that you wished you could paint. I sometimes look online, on sites such as Pinterest, and have particular artists I find especially beneficial. Their small studies are often in the same mix with their completed works and are great helps.  Also, books and catalogs from museums, available free at the library, are a good place to poke around for images that stir you. But best of all is before an actual painting in a museum, which is a wonderful means of making the most out of a visit.  Nobody will mind your sketching in a small sketchbook, and actually other people may be interested/inspired to see you working.

If using a photograph to do the exercise, choose a photo in color rather than black and white.  The advantage of color is that you’ll learn to read the value of color, which takes some practice, rather than having it done for you by a black and white reproduction.

The only tools I use are a soft graphite pencil (6B often), and an artist’s eraser at the end for cleaning things up.  And as I’ve mentioned, I like to mingle the 4 value studies in my regular sketchbook that I do my other work in.

Procedure

For the demonstration, I’m using a sketchbook and a printed image from a book I own. The painting is by a favorite Russian impressionist, Isaac Levitan, and was picked for its full value range and interesting big shapes. He’s a favorite artist of mine, so what better way to learn about his work?

                                    The first sep in a four value drawing 

                                      The art and the sketchbook positioned for easiest comparison. 

In the image above, my sketchbook and soft graphite pencil are at hand, and the painting I’m working from is immediately in front of me at a comfortable angle. This is so my eye travels the shortest possible distance to compare the image and the drawing.

The first step is to find the proportion of the rectangle that I’m copying. I’d like you to do it by eye, and without a ruler, since   we’re learning to trust our eye. It needs to be the same proportion (size) as the rectangle in the reproduction.  You can see faint lines to help show the center of the rectangle…and it’s okay of they are loose and sketchy at the start.

The next step is to make a scale of 4 steps.  Start by drawing a white box, two more empty boxes, and then a very dark box, like I’ve done at the base of the drawing above. This is the outside range of our pencil’s ability to create light and dark, and between those two boxes, create a light grey and a darker grey. Try to keep the steps between all four values even. 

Important-everything within your drawing is going to be in one of these four values, even though you’ll see many more values in the painting than four. Your challenge here, and the benefit of the exercise, is to simplify the many values of the painting into four. 

As you start the drawing the outlines within the rectangle, start with the most important big shape.  The dark water forms a big shape, and the sky another, so I’d start with one of those. Try to place them as accurately as you can, and with a very light sketchy touch. Study the original and compare the big shapes to what you’re making, and adjust if you see something that looks off. This is best so you can avoid relying on an eraser too much. Almost everything in any drawing will start out very light, very sketchy. You can always commit to going darker once you’ve confidently arrived at where the proper position truly is.  It’s a great habit to learn.

Also, do yourself a favor…and try NOT to do this quickly.”Speed of execution” is not helpful nor a good strategy. Savor the time with a great painting. Learning to gradually get the big shapes correct is the important thing, and you’ll find that you improve more quickly by taking it slowly. 

Second Step

Our second step will be to take our lightest of the two grays and cover the paper with everything that isn’t going to be white, or grouped in the lightest of values. This is what I’ve done in the image below. I’m a right-hander, and so I usually do this with close hatching lines going right to left at a 45 degree angle. You can see what I did in the photo, and is the easiest and most natural way to lay down a gray.  We’re reserving the white, much as a watercolor painter does… but everything else, being darker than our white (and very lightest color values) will at least be the second grey. So you can cover everything but the light group with our lightest grey. 

                                       

Third Step

The addition of the first grey sets us up for the next, darkest grey, which is equidistant in value from the light grey to the black.  The fact that we’ve already applied our light grey over everything that’s not in light now works to our advantage because that’s a good foundation for this dark grey value to follow. Anything that’s not in the darkest dark or the lightest grey will be made of this value, regardless of what type of object it happens to be. And remember, it’s only shapes we’re interested in, not any details. 

You’ll eventually see that this requires us to make decisions about how to group things simply.  Four values aren’t nearly enough to account for everything we see in a painting, but that’s the good part…we now have to forget about what things “are” in the painting and work abstractly as a designer…grouping values together regardless of what they represent (sky, water, hills, etc.) in the picture.  

Final Step

                                     

In this final step, it’s simply a matter of adding the pattern of the darkest darks to the other three. This is where it’s advantageous to have used a soft pencil; it makes that darker value easier to apply richly.

After doing so, I finally clean up the whites a bit with my eraser, re-adjust the values a bit overall, and enjoy the drawing and painting. A light application of a spray fixative isn’t out of the question, either. 

Conclusion

One of the main task of the painter is to arrange and organize the content of the work. Most come to realize the importance of this later rather than early. The wealth of preliminary sketches and drawings and by the great painters often show how important they knew this branch of the work to be. With this method and some practice, you can learn the thinking they put into their own paintings, which is information that you probably can’t get by just looking and admiring. 

Another great benefit is that when you are in the field working out a painting, or in a studio with a model, or a still life, this practice is a perfect skill set to help you quickly determine your design. 

I hope you’ll give this a try…and would love to hear about your experience or any questions. Feel free to comment, and GOOD LUCK!

 

The Tune-up

Each developing artist has the opportunity of determining the type of artist they wish to become.

For some of us, this direction may be the response to obvious inborn tendencies. In this case the direction seems rather clear, and it becomes a matter of obtaining skills and experience, which marks the beginning of the journey. For others, the choice can take a different course; one of feeling your way along, stopping completely at times… and trying different doors, developing a gradual view of where to aim. And combinations of the two are often possible. 

In either instance, for any prospective artist, the skills necessary to achieve a level of proficiency require time and sufficient interest on the part of the person to develop. 

The necessary ingredient for any art enthusiast’s growth is that they must be a self-starter.  And in service to this truth, it’s the development and maintenance of skills that I’m writing about today. 

On occasion, perhaps a few times a year…I find myself needing to retreat from the usual routine and just concentrate on my general basic skills. And one of the most effective ways that I know is to do either a drawing or a painting from a plaster cast.

The Cast

Plaster casts have been around for centuries, and acknowledged as an excellent tool for developing visual perception in an artist. This is for good reason…

Among these qualities:

Casts are stationary models.

The cast is white, which means it’s halftones and shadows are clear shades of grey, and so within the reach of charcoal (if drawing) or paint.

Casts are often styled after fragments or entire sculptures from classical sources, and so possess intrinsic refinements.

On my little journey with the cast below, I set out to do a brief (a matter of about 6 hours) but fairly thorough oil study under daylight conditions. This is enough to serve as a checkup on my “eye” for shapes, distances, values.

As seen in the photo, I set the cast up so that it was directly next to the primed panel I was to paint on. I then chose a viewing position (about seven feet back from the arrangement), where I was to spend about half my time looking and deciding from. This is important; you must be viewing from exactly the same point, at a distance, and making your decisions there, approaching the actual painting only to paint what you’ve decided to from the viewing position.

After the strokes are placed, I step back and assess. This procedure is continued for the duration of the exercise (the strategy described is referred to as the sight-size method).

As each additional bit of the painting moves forward, it’s important to compare carefully from the viewing position. Height, width, shape, and value are all improving gradually and in a unified manner, with no single aspect getting further along than another. 

This procedure goes from the largest to the smallest, the outside (biggest shape) to the inside (smaller shapes), and from the general to the specific. This is itself a remarkably helpful habit to acquire for a representational artist. 

Over a few hours the painting begins to resemble the cast more and more. Because I prefer daylight for illumination, the shadows move very slightly but constantly, so I must eventually select a time of day to limit the work, which I can return to a following day at the same time. 

 

The artwork and cast are set up closely to help with easy comparison.

The Reason

The entire point of all this is to tune-up my ability to see shapes (the cast, the shapes of shadows upon the cast, etc) accurately. This includes being able to read the values (degrees of lightness and darkness) of the shadows and the half-tones truthfully.

The wonderful thing about the procedure is it will teach us to work from general to specific.  This is a very good habit to formulate and will serve you well in everything you do. The image above shows the first hour or so of work… essentials are laid- in very generally, yet still with relative precision at each touch of the brush. 

As I worked, I gradually adjusted things more closely to the actual cast, but moving around the object to where it was farthest from “truth” (the actual appearance of the cast) rather than “finishing” bit by bit. It’s important to keep the entire painting moving forward in the general-to-specific mode, much like slowly adjusting the focus of a lens.

As I proceeded, remembering to step back to my observation point regularly, I found that I tended to make my shapes a little too wide, and so became mindful of that. As the light on the cast gradually changed, the shadows correspondingly moved and changed value, so I also had to stay on top of that as well.

Gradually the cast came together over two mornings of a couple hours work each. I chose not to push it any further though there were things that could have be better…. with me, there’s a tipping point where the painting can turn to an over-finicky attitude that interferes with the general purpose of the exercise.

The Benefit

Confidence…I can look at something in nature (meaning anything visible to my eye) and I’m able to trust my eye to assess the height, breadth, value and shape accurately. I could liken this quality to clear diction in a speaker, being “in tune” to a musician, the ability to assess actual flavor to a winemaker. 

Fluency…this increases efficiency; I can grasp the actual shape of a mountain or a portrait sitter’s head faster and with less struggle than ever before. I can catch distortions much earlier, rather than when the work is too far along. This creates a real freedom to explore color and other expressive qualities because I trust the general foundation of what I’m painting is in place.

 

The cast-study at completion time. 9″x 9″ oil on oil-primed masonite panel.

So, in conclusion, I highly recommend this exercise as a skill building instrument. It’s for anyone painting anything where representation matters, not excluding landscape, seascape, genre, figure, or any other  form of painting. I’ve benefitted countless times from the imbedding of the good habits that come with this sort of work…and frankly, I enjoy the work very much. 

 

Traveling with wet oil paintings

When traveling, no other activity in painting brings me more excitement than taking my old pochade box outdoors in search of a new motif to tackle.

Being a Hawai’i resident, trips to the mainland are welcome opportunities.  I can paint in situations where the visual content is rich in different ways than at home. The architecture, color, climate, citizenry…all offer a fresh point-of-view.  I love carefully scouting out a spot where I can unobtrusively compose and paint a sketch.

But when working in oil, there’s also a serious practical matter involved. How can we get damp paintings home safely with minimal expense and fussing?

Here’s what I came up with.

Divide and Conquer

For this to work, the oil sketches need to be the same dimension. Fortunately, I only brought the size panels that fit my box, so all are 8 x 10″.

In this image, the paintings are numbered from earliest (1) to latest (3).  When it came time to pack, painting 1 was sufficiently set-up

My three fresh paintings, in order of dryness to the touch.

as far as being dry to the touch. It was the least vulnerable to damage. 2 was still soft, but was fairly set-up as far as dryness to the touch, being about 4 days along in drying. Painting 3 was the wet one, and so became the big concern among the paintings as I packed them.

Just a note…I don’t use driers (or any other means) to accelerate the normal drying time of oil paintings.  Exposure to air circulation and normal daylight conditions are ideal.   That discussion is for another time, but I wanted to mention it here.

Enter the Bamboo Chopstick

Being that I live (and eat) in Hawai’i, I’m used to disposable bamboo chopsticks as a part of routine life. When I needed to find a short, thin, readily available spacer to separate the paintings, I needed not look further. The ones we found are rectangular at the grip, ideal for use as spacers. Easy to cut if needed, they rest positioned on the painting’s edge, where the rabbet of the frame would overlap. That means any area of damp paint the chopstick might disturb would be easy to touch-up, and likely invisible once the paintings are framed.

The driest painting, upper left, with two bamboo chopsticks in place.

Using painting 1 as the base, I added a pair of chopsticks cut to the height of the painting, and placed them both along the edges on two sides. 

The second driest painting, top, resting over the first painting, separated. Two more sticks are in place, this time on the horizontal edges.

Next, I seated painting 2 on the platform thus created, and also facing paint-side up. There’s about 1/4″ between the paintings, which is great.

For painting 3,  wettest of the oil paintings, I faced it downwards. I was careful to seat it where the chopstick dividers would rest against the painting’s edges. Once positioned, I used some packing tape to bind the whole “sandwich” firmly together, as seen below.

 

The third and final painting, the wettest, is placed wet-side inwards. on top of the prior painting. The entire “sandwich” is then snugly and carefully taped into place with packing tape.

When this was done, it was only a matter of wrapping the combined paintings in some sturdy brown wrapping paper, and taping them closed.

Since I decided to carry them in my suitcase,  I took a moment to indicate the contents on the wrapping,  in the off-chance that my bags were opened for inspection.

Paintings wrapped and ready for my suitcase. On the off-chance that the bag is opened for inspection, I’ve marked the package descriptively.

I hope this is helpful to others. The whole process took about 20 minutes, and everything survived the flight perfectly.

Feel free to offer your comments or questions.

A Morning Ocean Study

This morning, Honolulu was greeted with overcast skies, so I immediately changed my painting plans to take advantage of the situation… because an overcast day is ideal for painting ocean studies.

“Ocean studies” are exercises.  In painting and drawing, we gradually educate ourselves about the behavior and look of the ocean by repeated exposure. The more of this direct contact I have, the more fluent I’ll become, enabling me to paint with more confidence and authority.

With ocean work, “overcast” helps

Overcast is good because it’s on such days that I find the ocean easiest to paint. In Hawai’i, perhaps unlike other areas, finding shade to work in is critical.  Oftentimes, the rocky coastlines I prefer lack shade. So it’s great news when we have some good cloud cover.

Some other points regarding overcast days:

-Almost all the values (shades of dark & light) will fall in the middle range. What this means is that the lightest whites of the breaking waves are slightly less than the pure white on my palette.  The darks in rocks are slightly less dark than my darkest pigments. Therefore, our notes of color become closer to what can be reached with paint.

-Because sunlight is restricted, the effect of sunlight is diffused and doesn’t change as much during the painting session. This might give me more time to paint before the light changes.

My purpose in making studies

In anything I refer to as a “study”, my main intention is to learn by doing.

If a study looks good when finished, that’s terrific, and I want that to be the case. But that isn’t the entire target. Ocean studies are an ongoing seeking-out of design ideas, the “notes” of color (the actual look of the color in the right value), and the shapes and rhythms of the sea.  By exposure to direct observation, brush in hand, a vocabulary can be built. That’s a skill I want to have internalized so that when struggling with a painting I’ll have a reliable sense of when I’m getting close to the look of nature….and when I’m not.

 Ignore the spectacular

The ocean possesses numerous sensitive moods, and each has artistic value. The dramatic crashing wave-against-rock theme is not the only possibility, so it’s wise to become aware of others. The observation of the quiet-but-telling secondary actions of the sea is of great importance and is possibly the most difficult.  Understanding that waves are visible, fluid manifestations of energy is a good framework for launching out on the work of painting the ocean, and if viewed that way, we may find interesting motives for paintings.

Getting practical

I’m generally hoping to be out early for ocean work. My setup is with a lightweight easel and color box that I’ve been favoring over the last few years. I carry the minimum of things needed, refined from a lot of practice, and pack my equipment the prior evening.  When I arrive at the location, I don’t haul my equipment around looking for a spot.  Rather, I look for my spot and then bring my equipment to it.

My palette for the ocean includes (Lead) White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Lemon, Indian Red, Permanent Crimson, and Viridian; for blues, Cerulean, Cobalt, and Ultramarine, and finally Ivory Black. For the painting to follow, I chose an 11 x14″ oil-primed wooden panel. This is large enough to allow some freedom of brushwork, but small enough to complete in a few hours. As the photos show, it’s mounted against a neutral gray backing, which allows a consistent middle gray around the margin of the study; this helps me judge things a bit better.

Composing

I always try to think through the composition of anything I put my brush to. That’s a discipline I need to practice. Art ultimately is dependent on taste…and so each step can at least be an effort in the direction of making better choices.

In this case, my interest was the action of the largest wave. Since the painting is so middle-value,  I chose to include the rock (which is stationary and dark), and place it where I thought it would be most helpful to the overall design. This gave me something dark to measure the other values against. Also, the wet sand aspect introduced the only truly warm color notes (ochre), and added to the dark of the rock, really helps bring the study to life.

I always want the largest shapes (sky, sea, sand, white of the waves, etc) to contribute to an interesting pattern in and of themselves. In this case the division shown on the white panel, though done quickly, does reflect some concern for realizing that. Notice there’s a small “x” mark painted in the center of the canvas… it’s a help to arranging those big shapes.  The lines are painted in after some planning with light charcoal lines, which were dusted off before the paint went on.

Painting general-to-specific

I always begin work from the most general towards the specific. This applies to shapes, values, and colors. So after the drawing in of the main shapes, my next objective is to seize the overall color-cast of this morning, which is a gray and cool effect.  The best place is to begin with the sky, the furthest element from me and also the source of the light.

I mix a general value of blue gray, getting as close in color as I can to what I’m seeing. Using a large filbert brush I begin to lay-in the sky with a hearty amount of paint. I use individual brushloads placed side by side, something like a mosaic.  My task here is to cover the white panel with a general value of each main color area. Once I get this, I will come back and refine the work. Virtually everything in my painting will be treated more than once, or more times.  In the general-to-specific approach, it’s important to get the entire painting started (general), and suspend working on the specific (smaller elements and details) until that’s accomplished. Then, revisit each element, drawing it all together into a cohesive visual whole.

As I am doing this, I’m also watching the general motion of the sea, and considering how I might best capture the action of the waves, the purpose of the study.

Initial lay-in of pigment

 

An important point to keep in mind, and the reason for starting with the sky, is that whatever is going on there is also happening in the ocean. Students hear me refer to the sky and the ocean as a married couple; one’s mood is affecting the other’s mood directly.

As I get the general effect of the sky in place, I begin to work that color down into the color of the water. Because we have overcast conditions, I can get the actual colors and values I see in the water without too much trouble.

 

Continuation of lay-in

The large area of broken white water, generated by the breaking wave and shallow, sandy bottom, is a matter of getting just the right value of gray. I carefully mix what I need and, adjusting as I go, lay it in to the area. I’m using as much pigment as I can get on the brush, with only a touch of linseed oil.  A well-loaded brush and individual brushstrokes placed one against the other is my procedure for building the painting.

My next move requires care….the general color of the rock, and especially it’s shadow side, needs to be dropped into place.  because the dark shadow is the low end of my value scale.”How low”, compared to straight black, is important to judge correctly. I also look at the temperature of the dark (warm or cool?)  and place it.  Now, I can judge everything in the painting between the lightest and darkest notes of value…and adjust confidently now that these vital “bookends” are established.

Nearly completed

As the morning progresses, I have a nice amount of paint built up on the canvas. I’ve taken real care in getting the color of the face of the wave, the middle note, as close as I can to what I’m seeing. Having Viridian on my palette is important for this.

The sun’s made it’s presence known, having moved from behind the clouds and created some light/dark contrast in the green area of the wave. I now paint those darker notes with a reasonably large brush, thinking about the direction of the strokes. At this stage, how my brush work may add to the vitality of the action is paramount. During the initial lay in, it was less so. Because I have a good body of paint in place, these darker strokes ease into the existing paint beautifully.

The completed study, framed

After about 90 minutes, the sunlight has managed to overcome the gray skies, and it’s unwise to continue. Doing so would introduce an entirely different concept, and one must avoid “chasing the light”.

I bring the painting back to the studio, and from memory and best judgement I make some adjustments.  This stage, in actuality, is clarifying and simplifying.  We don’t always make the best choices in the heat of battle, so checking back on the morning’s work after a break is always good. 

Again, I’d like this to be a beautiful piece, but my real mission has been to objectively study the ocean, adding to my general knowledge of the sea. I add my monogram signature, and in 6 months the study will receive varnish for protection.

Please feel free to comment!  Thanks!

Thoughts on Rembrandt’s Drawing “Christ Walking on the Water”

As we wade into this topic, you should know that I love Rembrandt’s drawings and look at them often…for both pleasure and for learning purposes. You should also know that I’m not a Rembrandt scholar.  I’m simply an artist eager to look at Rembrandt drawings to learn about composition…and whatever else great painters such as Rembrandt might have used to put their pictures together.

The Miracle on the Water

The drawing we’re looking at here is one of many Rembrandt drew around New Testament Biblical accounts.  In this case, the telling of Christ’s miracle of walking on the water, and specifically the Gospel of  Matthew account, which is the only one to mention Peter’s attempt to walk on the water himself. For those interested or unfamiliar, you can read the  biblical accounts here.

Rembrandt’s purpose in making the drawing was likely to work out how he might present the story visually in a painting.  Whether he intended this drawing to be viewed by the public or drew it as a private expedition, I can’t say…the scholars might know. But either way, it’s likely a compositional drawing…concerned with deciding on the viewer’s (that’s us) point of view, choosing the characters involved, and pinning down the precise point of action to be depicted.

 

Rembrandt’s “Christ Walking on the Water”  1638,  from the British Museum

It’s such a curious drawing… delicate and refined in some portions and  heavier in line and rougher in effect in others. Compare the refinement of the figures of Christ and Peter to the boxier character climbing out of the boat. You can easily imagine that his legs, simply drawn, are an afterthought and his figure originally ended at the railing of the boat as his smaller companions does.  That difference contributes to my idea that it was a working sketch, with choices and changes evolving along the way.

 An organized sketch 

Though sketch like, the  drawing is a clearly organized arrangement. You can always look to Rembrandt for wonderful lessons in organization and leading the eye. There’s a sweep from Christ’s figure on the left to the boat’s hull and back, which provides a sort of rocking feeling that is appropriate to the conditions of the sea. But I also find that after we step inside the drawing, there’s a particular path our attention wants to follow. As with many Rembrandt drawings, this is arranged deliberately.

Here’s a  diagram of the triangular relationship that’s at the heart of the drawing. Thoughtfully considered, one will notice a sequential arrangement of not only the actions but the intentions of the characters involved.

Triangular relationship of key actions 

As the Gospel story indicates, only Peter asked the he might leave the boat. So what is interesting is how the characters are illustrating, and I’d say animating,  an entire sequence of action.

A sequential animation?

Due to placement, Christ’s figure attracts our attention from the start, and we easily follow His arm to poor, foundering Peter, angled so powerfully in Jesus’ direction.  From there, our attention most easily moves up and to the third corner of the triangle with the boldly drawn (and unidentifiable) character just leaving the boat. Look at that figure’s elbow forming the right corner of our triangle. Does he even seem aware of what’s going on beneath him?  And to the left of him, we see the young-looking fellow tucked away behind.  He’s only observing…but an important element, bridging the space from the boat over to the head of Christ reaching down to rescue Peter, their hands almost, but just not quite, touching (a wonderful choice).  And the animation repeats itself…a cycle of questioning, deciding, acting, failing, and finally rescuing. A profound statement of the faith process.

A subtle, interesting light source

Another surprising  feature of this drawing started with my questioning the indications of light and shade in the drawing. Often Rembrandt’s more complete drawings utilized tones of wash to indicate light and shade, but not in this case. This is a line drawing only; though somewhat rough in the application, there are (what artist’s call) cast shadows on the hull of the boat, and correspondingly on the ocean.  A cast shadow occurs when an object, in this instance the boat, is completely blocking the light source…(the darker the shadow, the brighter the light) and the figure of Christ and of Peter are very carefully shaded with even hatching lines, exactly as if backlit. I wondered about the intention of this, but the reason gradually became clear. The oval behind Christ is a  representation of the moon, and we then remember (from the biblical account) that this drawing represents a nighttime event.

 

I invite you to try and view the drawing in that sense…do you agree that the drawing becomes a much richer experience?  Hopefully you can imagine and admire the thinking and visualization necessary to put this together, and yet we should not be surprised.  Rembrandt’s drawings are like that.

I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts!

(And, as sometimes is the case, there’s been recent suspicion that the drawing is not by Rembrandt! You can find British Museum information concerning that here).

If you’d like to read my post of another Rembrandt analysis, it’s found here.

 

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Portland Street Painting

Portland 12th and Stark streets

This month I had the opportunity to get to the mainland, primarily on a family visit to Portland, Oregon. While there I spent a gloriously cold morning with my beloved eight by ten inch pochade box painting a street scene from my old stomping grounds in Portland’s Southwest side.

It’s a special thing to be back in a place that holds so much that is terribly dear to me, but that has also changed tremendously.

While working out the painting, I was happy to meet a number of very nice and very encouraging passers-by. That was a plus, because I didn’t know what working on the streets would be like anymore. And, of course, the more time I spent my considering my surroundings, the more it became an indicator of how much both Portland and I have changed since my leaving in 1985.

Purposeful Painting

Somehow, when you’re painting  something you know and care for, the work just goes better. You don’t have to dig up a rationale for choices, or to dwell on how it might be received. You’re invested…it’s got a built-in purpose, a token of gratitude and affection.  I hope that reads in the final work.

Here it is…not signed yet.

12th ave PDX
“12th Avenue, Portland”      8x 10″ Oil on panel

John Carlson’s Theory of Angles and Consequent Values-A Model

“Every good picture is fundamentally an arrangement of three or four large masses-“

So begins Chapter 1 in my aged copy of “Elementary Principles of Landscape Painting”, by John F. Carlson (now revised and available as Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting).

Like many others, I really admire John Carlson’s landscape paintings. I first encountered them face-to-face at the Grand Central Art Gallery in NYC.  And this was about the time I’d heard about his book, “Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting”.  But I have to say that when you see his work on a wall… it’s deep and it’s impressive. You know it’s the work of a painter who valued his craft and was genuinely responding to nature in a powerful way.  And that leads to paying much closer attention to what he had to say back in 1928, when his book was first published.  I can only hope that everyone who has read it might also, someday, have the chance to see his work personally.

John F. Carlson “Snow Lyric”, undated, oil on canvas 16.25 x 20.25″        Image courtesy of The Athenaeum

Carlson’s Theory of Angles and Consequent Values

One of the great practical lessons from the book is Carlson’s summation of how light affects the elements of the landscape.

He refers to it as the “Theory of Angles and Consequent Values”.  Carlson recognized that any landscape typically possesses four groups of values (degrees of light and dark) affecting three major planes… the horizontal ground plane, the angle plane represented by mountain slopes, rooftops, etc., and finally an upright plane, perpendicular to the ground plane, which can include anything from trees and walls to a standing human.

In order to interpret the landscape in a painting successfully,  an artist needs to simplify and organize nature.  Values are that which make form visible. Translating nature into value patterns,(i.e. grouping of lights and darks into shapes), are one of the ways of doing so.  Applying Carlson’s theory makes that much easier.

“The first two things to study are form and values. For me, these are the bases of what is serious art.” -Camille Corot

When daylight is overhead, as it would be at noon for example, the sky is the source of light and  therefore occupies the highest values on the gray scale. The ground plane receives the largest amount of light, and accordingly is the next lightest value plane. The slanted/angular planes receive  less exposure to direct light than the ground plane and so rest within a middle-value range. This  leaves everything in the upright plane to become the darkest value element.

While this is a wonderful help in creating order, it’s also a little abstract when read on the printed page alone.

A Model 

Because of this, I decided it would be easier to understand if I had a physical model, and over time I’ve built several. Most recently a student and I assembled one out of white foam core, which makes Carlson’s theory much more tangible.  I thought it would be fun to share with others who may want to repeat the exercise themselves.

The Carlson model assembled and drying

We added a small structure at an angle for additional interest, which isn’t from Carlson’s original description.

When finished and assembled ( using a steel ruler, an X-acto knife, acid-free Foamcore, and Lineco PVA glue), we put the model outdoors in daylight with the sun directly overhead.   The results are shown below.

 

The model outdoors in noonday light. The cast shadow is the darkest value, the ground plane the lightest.

 

Night Painting Over the Pacific, part 2

night painting cloud study 2

This pencil drawing, from my prior post, remains as a solid summary of what I’m after in my final piece.

I’ve relied on it to refresh my memory…in the heat of  constructing a night painting, it’s easy to gradually lose oneself along the way.  One needs an anchor, a plan, and I’d be lost without it eventually.

composition sketch
Small Pencil Sketch

The Essential Question

So, what am I after?  It’s hard to know with certainty. It’s not a commercial question, though it’s a given that I’ll be doing my best to make it as beautiful as I possibly can. But there has to be something communicated, something that I see and consider worth attempting to help you to see. And as I progress through these stages of organizing the picture, that’s the thing to be cleared up.

Right now, all I know is that I want to create an emotional response like what I’ve experienced at night, out on those cliffs. And to communicate it clearly to others. I hope that this basic motivation will become more nuanced as I proceed.

The Practical: Finding My Way

One of the particular difficulties is that the final painting must be done in the studio, and from studies that cannot be executed directly from nature.  It’s too dark outside.  So my “visual memory” must be sharp and reliable enough to put things together. And that’s not a clearly established procedure like some other aspects of painting.  I’m finding my way gradually.

At this point I’ve determined that the next step forward, now that the basic color/mood sketch and thumbnail are established, (here), is to make studies of the clouds.  They are the most complex and dramatic elements in the painting.  Accomplishing this will enable me to work out  my composition intelligently.

The Cloud Studies

I painted three main cloud studies from a nearby hilltop over several sessions.  I sketched in the ocean beneath  for scale.

It’s crucial to decide where the light source is to be in the final painting.  I’ve decided it will be the moon, and positioned directly above the view, and out of the canvas.  This was established in the thumbnail sketch. This is an important consideration and especially for a night painting. I want the moon outside the canvas because I would like to attempt to suggest it’s effect without including it.

Because of this, I hit upon the idea to paint the cloud studies outdoors at noontime, when the sun illuminating the clouds from directly overhead would replicate the moon at night.  I could then paint the forms I saw being created by sunlight on the clouds with confidence that they could translate into the night time effect by adjusting the values.

 

The cloud studies in order, 11 x 14″ each.

cloud study 1

norseth cloud study 2

These studies were essential and are extremely useful…not only for a night painting, but as contributing to my general knowledge. I know that work one does from nature, with all it’s hassles, roots itself in an artist’s mind in a unique way.  And they were great fun to work on!  Forms like clouds need to be rearranged and manipulated to move the eye within the painting; I’ve come to know that clouds are among the most flexible and reactive of the forms occurring in nature.  Full of surprises, expressive, and very, very beautiful.

I’ll be springing the final study in my next installment. Mahalo (thank you) from the South Pacific!

 

Mark