All Things Fine Art

There are times when working from life just isn’t possible. This winter, so far for this plein air painter, has been a huge disappointment. There are only two things that will keep me inside in the winter, strong winds and rain. I don’t mind the cold because I can easily dress for that but sub-zero winds are another matter.  When they occur I usually drive and take photo references or paint in the studio from photographs. We’ve certainly had more than our share of strong arctic winds this winter here in Michigan.

"Sunshine and Snow", 8x10", oil on panel, $400

Photos can be tricky to work from and I don’t recommend them to artists that haven’t had a great deal of experience painting en plein air. Working outdoors from life provides essential first-hand information on the effects of light on the landscape. It simply can’t be learned in any other way. The light spilling over the snow in “Sunshine and Snow” above is effectively different from the photographic reference (shown below) only because of my knowledge of light.  I was able to create more undulations in the snow that do not exist in the photo in order to make the foreground shape more interesting. Without the understanding of how light is represented with color on those undulations the painting would have looked as flat and lifeless as the foreground in the photograph.

Photo reference for "Sunshine and Snow".

This is also true of the background trees. The camera averages light and therefore, simply processed those trees as a dark shape. On location, my human eye saw more variation of value and color in the trees. This observation combined with my knowledge of atmospheric perspective, gave me what I needed in order to change the value and color thereby pushing the background further away which helped to place more emphasis on the two small trees at the top of the snow bank.

Students who rely solely on photographs generally copy them faithfully not understanding that by doing so, they are repeating untrue light and color effects that simply do not hold up to the laws of nature. It’s important for landscape artists to open their eyes and minds to what they see about them and learn from nature. Mother Nature is by far the best teacher.

I’m always interested in what experience other artists have in painting the landscape. What has your experience been in painting snow and/or creating atmospheric perspective from photographic references?

One of my annual goals is to sort, pitch and clean what’s left of the studio. An ambitious undertaking as you can see from the photographs.  The studio itself isn’t so bad, it’s the sorting and pitching of paintings/studies and the stacked receipts and other paperwork that accumulates in the last few months of the year. I say the last few months of the year because I always start the year with determination to keep ahead of the inevitable accumulation.  I fail at this every year…no exceptions!

Like most artists, the details of running a business are easily put off by this artist for more important and rewarding pursuits. Only the state and Federal governments can force me to change my ways and then only in the month leading up to state sales and Federal income tax deadlines.  Other than those two annual interruptions I am blessedly left to my own pursuits which is teaching and painting. Of course, family life, household maintenance, social obligations, etc. are detractors as well, but I won’t get into that…at least not today.

I like to purge my ever growing inventory of small works and sometimes larger pieces as well that simply, for whatever reason, didn’t get off the ground successfully. That’s a hard thing to do. I have to push myself and try my best to not make emotional decisions based on “gee, I really like that (even if it’s not really very good)”.  If a study or painting isn’t technically good, have some value for future work or saleable then it is slashed or marked with permanent markers and pitched. If I didn’t do this, I’d quickly run out of storage and there would be a lot of old paintings hanging around that don’t represent what I am capable of doing. However, I do keep a few from each stage I’ve gone through that were my best at that time and are a catalog of where I’ve been. I think that’s important, otherwise, how would I know if I’ve been improving?

With a cleaner studio and work area, I’m ready to face the new year and all the new works yet to be painted.  “Gosh, I guess I’d better get started”.