Part 4, project 4, exercise 1: Painting outside – painting a landscape outside

Updated on 23 March 2017 (Harvard referencing).

16 November 2016. There is a warm front travelling to come into Austria on Friday, so I need to be quick in order to plan and carry out my plein air painting exercise before more winter weather. There is a special place in our vicinity, a bit of woodland growing in a sandy pit in a restructured river basin. This place I chose before once for one of my Drawing 1 projects (Lacher-Bryk, 2015). Since I did not follow study guide instructions in the previous exercise (use and rework an existing painting), I decided that I would carry over this instruction to this exercise and apply it to the following drawing I made last year (Fig. 1):

Figure 1. Own drawing from OCA Drawing 1 course “Study of several trees”, ink pen, oil pastels and marker pens, 2015

I will make some preliminary sketches on site tomorrow (bad weather) and compare with what I have got, then quickly use the fair weather predicted for Friday to make a very rough painting with my largest brush to be completed outside. There is no plan to continue working on it in my workshop, so what I achieve outside will be what I get.

17 November 2016. Proceeding as planned, so setting off to the site just after lunchtime. The weather was very changeable, from overcast and some raindrops to sunshine and quite pleasantly warm and windy, so partly ideal for painting outside. I found the site mostly as it had been the year before, except that the sandy forest floor was covered in lots of brown autumn leaves and the incredible near-white sand and the contrast I had been looking for were invisible (I should have known better, being an ecologist and all that :o). I still took a set of photos of the spot, walking round to see whether other views might be attractive (Fig.2).

Figure 2

In the end I went for a beautiful view across the river with a small, eye-catching patch of white sand on the far bank and produced a landscape and a portrait format mini watercolour sketch (Fig. 3-5):

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5. Sketchbook – watercolour sketches

Cycling back I went through the colour options and the research on Fauvism and Expressionism I had done earlier that day. At first I had wanted to use autumn colours as found on site, but then came up with another option including very light colours, basically warm and cool shades of grey on a darker background prepared with a mix of Paynes grey and small amounts of other colours I would like to use, so that in the end the objects of the painting would have clear dark outlines. We’ll see whether this is feasible.

18 November 2016. It is very warm today and windy – what is called a “Föhn” weather situation typical for the Alps. It gives lots of people headaches, but others like me get a wonderful break from the November drizzle. It also makes painting outside a bit more difficult, since we get quite strong gusts of wind. Before going out I did a greyscale test in my sketchbook in order to find the colours I would need to take with me (Fig. 6).

Figure 6. Sketchbook – 50 shades of grey, more or less

Around lunchtime I left with my bike and 25 year old trailer full of painting materials and was extremely lucky to get to my site with the sun shining and the wind dropping (Fig. 7).

Figure 7

Here is my open air studio with prepared painting carton. I had a quantitiy of the mix used for the background with me and from this I mixed the rest of my colours. This system worked well, although I found that the conditions changing from bright sunshine to cloudy made my mixing results a bit arbitrary (Fig. 8).

Figure 8. Studio in the leaves

When I found that a hue would not fit the purpose I had intended it for, I used it intuitively in other parts of the composition.
Here is the first stage of the finished painting. Lying in the shade it looks rather blue, which it is not under proper lighting conditions (Fig. 9):

Figure 9. First stages of the finished painting

I had two full hours of painting, before it suddenly got very cold and I had to call it a day.
This is how far I got today. I quite like the “coarse” areas of colour in the centre (see detail of white tree across the river and tree stumps in the middle ground below) (Fig. 10-11).
Contrary to what I said earlier I think that I will do a little more work on the exercise in the workshop during the next few days (when there will be November weather and snow again) to try and carefully apply this technique to other parts of the composition.

Figure 10

Figure 11. Detail

20 November 2016. Today I spent some time trying to extend the discovered technique to the whole painting. Some of it appears successful, some of it not so. While I was quite happy with the changes to the light, especially by achieving a weird glow in the willow tree hanging over the river and the trees to the left, I think that the trees in the foreground need some more change, although I cannot yet think of what would be required (Fig. 12).

Figure 12. Finished painting

Commentary: “The experience of painting outdoors”

The work required for painting outdoors was not unfamiliar to me. I have done so on many occasions in the past. Although this was mostly watercolours, I knew what to bring and was able to plan ahead taking into acount the weather forecast. The most important piece of equipment is my bicycle trailer. It allows me to take along all necessary equipment apart from an easel, but when working outside I usually prefer sitting on a stool with the support lying on the ground in front of me. Although I know that the faithful copying of the things seen is probably easier on an easel, I appreciate the slightly longer interval between taking in the visual information and putting it on canvas as a very valuable creative break. Also, for me working from above the support results in a much looser brushmark that when standing in front of the easel.
Making linear and coloured thumbnail sketches with ink pen and watercolour, as well as testing the range of colours I wanted to bring in a small sketch using acrylics in my sketchbook, was immensely helpful when approaching the final work. It allowed me to develop in my mind a working “reflection” of the painting-to-be. Working on the final piece consisted of modulating my gathered experience by what came up on site. It was very enjoyable to see and feel this work and I guess that slowly these techniques come more naturally to me.
With regard to formal compositional rules I tested on a printout that to a relatively large extent elements of both the Rule of Thirds and more so the Golden Mean are present, as well as a working foreground – middleground – background construction. There is a pathway into the painting provided by the sandy area leading to the river and on across the river via the conspicuous white fallen tree and the mirrored white in the path leading away from the far side of the river. I also tried to include mirror structures and areas of colour: the white in the fallen tree and far side path, the violet in the smaller tree on the right and in the tangle of very young trees to the left, the turquoise of the river and the hanging tree, and also the shape of the fallen tree mirrored in the branch arching over the hanging tree. Also, I tried to include considerations of aerial perspective by gradually reducing detail as well as colour contrast and intensity. I was happy with the idea of having a selection of shades of grey mixed from an initial mix of Paynes grey, natural burnt umber, raw umber and white at the basis of the composition, since it allowed me to adapt with ease to different requirements and also this slightly aubergine hue went extremely well with all the colours introduced at later points (oriental blue, cadmium red, cadmium yellow medium, cobalt turquoise and black).
Overall I think that the outcome is quite satisfactory, although I am increasingly able to see the weak points in composition and choice of colour.
(514 words)

References:

Lacher-Bryk, A. (2015) Part 3, project 1, exercise 3: Trees – study of several trees [blog] [online]. Andrea’s OCA study blog. Available at: https://andreabrykoca.wordpress.com/2015/07/11/part-3-project-1-exercise-3-trees-study-of-several-trees/ [Accessed 16 November 2016]

Advertisement

Part 2, project 2, exercise 1: Still life – drawing in paint (step 1, choice of subject)

Updated on 20 February 2017 (Harvard referencing).

17 April 2016. Same as with Drawing 1. Since I am not the greatest of interior designers and we are not the owners of lots of things on shelves, I need to be very careful with what I select. Since now the things we do put on shelves usually indeed happen to be there, because there was room, with no design purpose whatsoever, they don’t mostly look great together, neither are the arrangements particularly interesting to look at. So, what I intend to do is to zoom into them and have a closer look at shapes and spaces without straining to attach them to a particular object, a bit like the Cubists approach. Since according to the study guide we are advised not to spend too much time looking, I will take my viewfinder and sketchbook to create some inkpen thumbnail sketches.

18 April 2016. After playing around with some Rubik’s cubes and an idea of trying to reproduce the colours on the squares as faithfully as possible I remembered another idea I have had for years and never had the time to try out. I have always been fascinated by the particular reflections produced by the taps in our shower and bath. Since the taps are metallic and the reflections consist mostly of shades of grey, this is, in my opinion, a great opportunity to use my new knowledge about mixing secondary colours. I took my viewfinder and sketchbook and tried several viewpoints. One of them was so awkward to get to that I had to take a photo and draw from that (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. Thumbnail sketches of bathroom fittings

Of the four viewpoints I think that I like the one best which includes the plughole (top right in Fig. 1 above), because it adds to a sense of space, making the shower hose appear quite alive. At the same time the position of the plughole in the bottom left corner of the frame serves to balance the rest of the fittings. In addition the viewpoint includes reflections from our coloured bathroom lamp. One of these also helps to draw the parts of the arrangement together. It is a wide band of soft colour starting at the plughole and travelling some way up the bath towards the tap. One spot of bright colour is also included, a small, pink and violet, plastic fish my son used to play with in the bath. Its colour communicates with the reflections from the lamp and its position inside the loop made by the hose provides a point of attraction in this otherwise empty area as well. Only the shadows are less prominent from this position, but the viewpoint looks so much more interesting than the rest that I will have a go at it.