Daily Painting Practice - Painting Water

I  find painting water one of the most challenging  things about landscape painting.  It beats painting clouds, trees, grass and even rocks. All of those have a greater fudge factor, but water is like painting skin on a portrait. It needs to feel alive at the same time it has to have depth and movement ( maybe tension is a better word)  even when it is on a still surface.

Take a look at these three progress shots. You may have to look  to find the differences but after two weeks I had hope to make more progress.

I love this water. I should clarify, actually, I love the potential of this water. This water has me painting and repainting, tweaking and  standing back, squinting and squirming over  and over and over.  I am a little afraid of over painting  because I need to keep the water looking fresh and clean...( who likes to look at muddy water?)

click on the image to enlarge the painting

Back to the Northwoods

(painting in progress)

Here's the problem I am working on: The texture of the floating water lilies and algae is so very different from the surface texture of the water. It needs to look as if  it is floating. If that isn't hard enough to paint , I put the foreground in shadow  and the light  cutting across the background  with lots of color in the reflections. (Who thought of this painting?) This was supposed to be an easy  one.  What is the lesson we should all learn from this?

The next time you go to a gallery and look at a really beautifully  painted  landscape with a very soothing and tranquil body of water in it...

  say a prayer for the artist.

Daily painting practice - Starting a north woods painting

Going back to the Northwoods to begin another painting.

It really helps me to put myself into the landscape and pretend I am there when I begin a new painting.  If I imagine I can feel the sunlight, smell the air, and  hear the wind, I believe it helps me paint the scene.

Not only should you see yourself at the place but also at the time of day and time of year. You should know whether the sun is coming out to warm the  ground or  is going down. Are the leaves on trees dry or wet with dew? Are the clouds gathering or floating  by?

click on the painting to enlarge the image

Back to the Northwoods
- work in progress

24"x36"

oil on canvas

 I have mentioned several times in this blog that Winslow Homer is one of my  art heroes. He was someone that definitely captured both time and place  in his paintings.

Lately, I have been enjoying  watching videos of artwork on YouTube.  It is a great way to view work  by your favorite artists. I particularly like it when people create a video that uses interesting music. The music selection can  really change the way you experience the artwork. One day I'm going to learn how to do this with my work.

Here are two videos with similar art by Winslow Homer, but the music is different. Enjoy!

Daily Painting Practice - No Sour Grapes

I had some good  news this month, I had one painting juried into the Salon International Competition. Yeehah!  It is so encouraging to get into these shows. It is great exposure...However,  that was followed a rejection of my entries for the Oil Painters of America National Show.  Bummer! So what is the lesson here?

Keep your eyes on the prize. I'm not talking about the prize of getting into national competitions, I'm talking about the prize of continuing to strive to do your best work. While  getting into these shows definitely looks good on your art resume,  and they are a good way to promote your work, it is not the end goal.  Painting work you are proud of  is the goal and the prize.

click on the painting to enlarge the image

No Sour Grapes

11"x14"

oil on masonite

So no sour grapes! Keep trying  to get into competitions and keep painting.

Daily Painting Practice - Copying from a Master (living or dead)

All artists must have an abundance of art magazines. It's one of the rules.  ( I have piles and piles of them in the studio,the living room...on my bed stand...the kitchen table) However, the instruction manual for becoming an artist doesn't say what you are supposed to do with all those magazines once you have looked through them over and over and over and over again. Here's a suggestion that is both fun and rewarding.

 A few artist friends I haven't seen in a while got together for a painting day.  I wasn't sure what I was going to paint,  going out in sub-zero winter weather wasn't going to happen, so I brought some of those old magazines and decided to have fun copying from a master.

There are so many ways to learn from this exercise.  Look for a painting that stands out to you and try to find the reason it does. Then have fun painting that reason. Make the painting your own and not just a twin of the original. However,  always give credit to the original artist in your title of the painting. Always say  it is your copy from the original artist's work.  Artists have been copying each other since artists first started drawing.  So don't be shy, have a copy  party with a few friends. At least you'll have a reason to tell your librarian/wife why you need all those magazines.

One of my favorite contemporary artists is Clyde Aspevig. Lucky for me there was one of his paintings in the magazine.

Daily Painting Practice - Winter Cityscape work in progress

Ok, so last week I attempted a small "easy painting" that ended up not being so "easy".  This week it seemed like the obvious thing to do would be to swing towards the opposite direction. Here's the underpainting stage, it almost looks like a watercolor.

Where do you begin? After painting in the sky I found myself thinking " where to start?" Do I paint from left to right? Or work over the whole painting  at the same time?

Here is the comparison to the plein air sketch. I mistakenly started painting over it before I caught myself. Sometimes it doesn't pay to try and be efficient. .

I decided to start with the center of interest.

One thing to note is if you have a weakness try and find a solution to help you improve it. I always have a hard time with windows and keeping a clean line in a cityscape. So I use a T-square as a guide, (I also have to remember to keep count of the windows...up and down!)

I thought  it would help if I zoomed in for you to see the area I am working on. You can see the guide lines for the windows I drew in with pencil.

This level of detail is very enjoyable for me. I am still watching for hard and soft edges, tone, and form even  zoomed in this far. This is the view my eyes have sitting directly in front of the painting. You need to be very careful though when sitting  this close. Be sure to step back often because....

This is the size of the painting! Keep your eyes on the big picture!!! (even when working on small details.)