BEGINNING A PAINTING DESCRIBE WHAT YOU SEE

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2 BEGINNING A PAINTING Painting is a time-consuming activity that demands that artists focus on projects that will help them grow. Before starting a new work, it s important to identify your motive: Am I learning a new technique, experimenting with a different palette, building a body of work, or enjoying a free moment to express myself? Your motive becomes your artistic intention in the work and helps determine if you ve reached your goal when a painting is finished. DESCRIBE WHAT YOU SEE Begin by answering the question What do I see? Is it a tree by the waterside or a rolling meadow leading off to distant hills? Describing what you see can help you start to organize your perceptions. It sounds easy, but it may prove more difficult ABOVE: DOMENIC CRETARA, ROAD TO IBIZA, 1977, OIL ON PAPER, 11 X 15 INCHES (27.9 X 38.1 CM). A sketch of a new landscape view (opposite) first allows the artist time to discover the compositional elements that are then later refined in the oil painting (above). OPPOSITE: DOMENIC CRETARA, ROAD TO IBIZA (STUDY), 1977, GRAPHITE ON PAPER, 11 X 14 INCHES (27.9 X 35.6 CM). 8 THE ELEMENTS OF LANDSCAPE OIL PAINTING GETTING STARTED 9

3 FEATURE Essential Brush Techniques Three factors work together to determine the outcome of every brush mark: angle of brush to canvas surface, pressure on brush tip, and direction of brush pull. Beginning painters often suffer poor painting results because they maintain the same approach for every brushstroke, leaving their painted surfaces dull and overworked. By holding the brush too close to the tip, at the same 90-degree angle, with firm pressure, their brush handling results in scratching off paint or overblending colors. By holding the brush toward the end of the handle, you can achieve a controlled, sensitive touch, allowing the paint to be placed in exactly the right manner (size and direction of the stroke). Combined with a low 45-degree angle, you can apply more pigment over areas on the wet paint surface quite easily. Correctly loading the brush tip with the right amount of paint is equally important. Typical problems arise from too much paint on your brush when you are blending two areas together or from not having enough paint on the brush tip when you pull a thick, textured stroke. In a world of right-handed painting, left-handed painters have the challenge of adapting techniques to their own bias. Lefties should consider their natural pull from top right to bottom left, and practice employing hand-over-brush (pinching the handle with forefinger and thumb), as an alternate means for controlling the placement of brushstrokes. You can draw narrow lines when the brush is upright, 90 degrees to the canvas surface so that only the tip of the brush touches the canvas. You can place small, dappled strokes or lightly feather-blend on the canvas surface by holding the brush at a 45-degree angle. You can drag broad areas of paint over the surface by holding the brush at a low angle to the canvas when the tip is charged with paint. SUZANNE BROOKER, DESERT CANYON WALL, 2007, OIL ON CANVAS BOARD, 11 X 17 INCHES (27.9 X 43.2 CM). An upright brush at a 90-degree angle allows just the tip to touch the surface. This angle allows you to use the brush to draw thin lines or to make small, delicate marks. The stronger the pressure, the fatter the resulting lines or marks. A 45-degree angle on the brush allows you to use the tip to gently blend paint together without excessively moving the paint from one area to another. Think of these as soft feathering strokes that blend the edges of two areas of different values or hues together. A low-angle brush allows you to place the paint from the tip of brush onto the surface without scratching it off or mixing the new paint with the layer underneath. A variety of brush marks are used to produce the textural surfaces here from thin lines for the cracks in the wall and for the branches to flat, broad strokes used to trail along the ground plane to dappled brush marks for the foliage. 32 THE ELEMENTS OF LANDSCAPE OIL PAINTING GETTING STARTED 33

4 BRUSH TECHNIQUES VERTICAL ZIGZAG Rendering grass is easy when you use the thin side of a flat brush to move verti- Conveying the various textures of the ground takes different kinds of cally up and down in short strokes. Even long meadow grasses will have short, brushstrokes from smoothly blended to chunky, chisel-shaped marks. smaller strokes in the background, while those in the foreground appear longer Experiment with the shape and firmness of your brushes to see how each and larger. When the brush moves horizontally, you can suggest the ground plane brush performs when practicing with these brushstrokes. at the same time. If the grass extends all the way across the bottom edge of the canvas, try taping a piece of paper there so that your brush marks don t imply the CHISELED STROKES grass grows from the bottom edge of the canvas. You can then use the pointy tip of a round brush to draw in any fine details like the bent leaves on tall grass. Rough stones and cliff-sides benefit from brush marks made with a flat brush. Wedge-shaped chisel strokes Vertical zigzag strokes Short strokes that move in a progression can lead the eye over the contours of the ground just as an abrupt change in direction can indicate a square or wedgelike PALETTE KNIFE formation. The results of long flat brush marks suggest flatness, especially with For a special effect or accent, you can use the palette knife to place thick paint the square blunt end of the brush. You can indicate the direction of a rock face by toward the end of a painting. (The palette knife, however, is not a substitute for the angle of your brushstrokes. good brush technique.) When the palette knife is charged with paint on its side, you can pull a thin line by dragging only the edge of the knife along its side. The DRAGGING tip of the knife can also deliver a chunky pat of paint that can be dragged to suggest rocky shorelines and rough terrain. Scratching through thick paint (scrafitto) Dragging a loaded brush tip at a low angle creates a rough textured deposit with the tip of a palette knife reveals the color layer below. You can use scrafitto of paint that suggests a rough crumbly soil. When you hold the brush hand- drawn lines to indicate the texture of small pebbles or thin branches. over-brush, you can use a rocking motion to further scatter marks in an irregular fashion. LITTLE C STROKES Dragging strokes Lines with palette knife You can best approach painting an intensely textured surface like a pebbly beach or small stones by first looking for the overall pattern. Look for places where shadows create a contrasting moment of detail and the random overlapping of their shapes. Placing equal-size dots of paint with equal spacing between the marks will have an instant flattening effect, making it look like pebble wallpaper. Begin at the background and work toward the foreground. That way you can build by overlapping and increase the scale of the marks as you move along. Using the tip of a small filbert brush leaves curved marks when you draw the brush in tight C strokes. With a strong light direction, shadows appear on one side and somewhat underneath. This shadow color mixture should be an oily dark that will appear transparent when painted over individual stones. You can correctly place highlights on the opposite side where the rocks face up to the sun. Little C strokes Subtle to rough textures made with lighter pigment are applied over a darker color. Chunky shapes with palette knife 90 THE ELEMENTS OF LANDSCAPE OIL PAINTING TERRAIN 91

5 A bright morning creates bold reflections on the water. Begin block-in of the trees with transparent dark green. Brighten foliage close to shoreline with midvalue greens. Begin painting the water at the shoreline. brush, a water-blue brush, and a clean filbert as a quick blender/smoother brush. SUZANNE BROOKER, I choose firm but soft-tipped nylon brushes in a filbert shape that will be able to pick up a nugget of paint on the tip but also glide smoothly over the surface, responding to the pressure of my touch. I start off painting in a horizontal direction across the length of the canvas, trying to keep the same scale and frequency in my brush marks. This captures the reflections close to shore or the ruffles from the spring inflow moving near the shore. My approach is to always work laterally across the surface, which allows me STILL WATER REFLECTIONS, 2013, OIL ON CANVAS BOARD, 10 X 20 INCHES (25.4 X 50.8 CM). A predominant blue-green palette gains additional brightness when it s painted over an orange toned ground. to stop without losing my place or leaving an abrupt edge. As the painting advances downward, I begin to align the tree forms and their Start the water reflections with a thin layer of paint. Plan tree reflections in a vertical alignment. reflection on the vertical axis, blocking in first the darks and then the midgreens of the trees and shrubs. It is also helpful to turn your canvas upside down or even sideways in order to check the alignment, making sure the reflections are not drifting at an angle. Using the darkest green color, I block in the treetops, leaving space for the sky-on-water color mixture to fill in and soften the tree edges. Notice how the brush marks swishing side to side also increase in size and spacing. Soon all the orange will be covered with the slightly deeper sky-blue mixture. Before the paint dries, I blur the edges and then stand back to check that no shapes in the reflections pop forward. If I go back now to lighten the clouds or change anything in Use side-to-side swish strokes of blue that meet the tree reflections. Add foreground water, and refine the details. the upstairs portion of the painting, I also need to adjust the water reflections. 168 THE ELEMENTS OF LANDSCAPE OIL PAINTING WATER 169

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