Category Archives for General

Rembrandt’s Palette

Rembrandts Father

Check out this article on Rembrandt’s  palette. He used black and earth colors and was still able to achieve a sense of luminosity

Click here:  Rembrandt’s Palette

Celebrating Autumn

These are a few paintings of autumn that I’ve admired and learned from over the years.  There are hundreds of good paintings to choose from but since we all have a life I’ll start with just a few.  Autumn gives the artist a chance to work with a lot of color, which is nice after a long summer of green everything. And here in Tucson its a time to get outside and paint, The temperatures are coming down from the 100’s and upper 90’s.
This first painting is by Charles Harold Davis, a tonalist in the late 19th century that changed to impressionism when he returned from his studies in France. He lived and painted in Mystic Conneticut.

This painting below, October Morning, is by Willard Metcalf. The colors are very vibrant but he does use muted colors next to the stronger colors to give them more impact. If all the colors were too saturated they wouldn’t make any statement. Saturated color is color that isn’t dulled down with white or a compliment, more straight from the tube.

This is another painting by Willard Metcalf buts its much more muted in its coloring which gives a totally different effect, more hazy and atmospheric. Here he controls the colors much more with a gray or compliments.

In this Metcalf painting titled The Sillon, theres more balance between the muted and the stronger colors. Not as atmospheric as the last one and not as intense as the first.

New Book

I want to recommend an art book by Cindy Salaski and published by North Light Books. It’s titled Oil Painting with the Masters, Essential Techniques From Today’s top Artists.
The book features 10 artists with examples of their work, discussions on different aspects of painting and step by step demonstration by each artist.

The artists featured are Marc Hanson, Susan Lyons, Richard McKinley, Laurie Kersey, Camille Przewodek, Jeffery Watts, Kevin Macpherson, Phil Starke and George Gallo. Along with images buy Jeremy Lipking, CW Mundy and Quang Ho.

Oil Painting with the Masters: Essential Techniques from Today’s Top Artists

Below is my entry from the book.

IMG_9990 as Smart Object-1

IMG_9991 as Smart Object-1

Plein Air Painting: Mixing Color

Even though composition and values are the most important elements in painting, it’s color that draws us to stop and look at a painting. Color draws out more emotions in us. So when we paint outside we want to do more than copy what we see. We want to know our palette well enough to be able to mix and apply color that suggests the light and drama that we see in the landscape. I recently painted in Teton National Park and Southern Utah and I talk about the color choices I made on a couple of the paintings in this video.  Develop your skill as a Plein Air painter and check out my online course “Plein Air Painting Course”.

Plein Air Painting: Seeing Shapes Instead of Detail

I recently went on a painting trip to Teton National Park in Wyoming and spent about 12 days painting. Its very easy to get caught up trying to paint details of subtle stuff, especially if its a new area. The details catch our eye and we become enamored with small things that seem different and interesting to paint. I think were naturally drawn to detail so we have to train ourselves to think abstractly in terms of shapes Below is a 16 x 20 that I did in the park. Its a little larger then I usually work so I went back for a second sitting to finish.  Develop your skill as a Plein Air painter and check out my online course “Plein Air Painting Course”.

summer in the tetons16x20 small

summer in the tetonsflat

When I look for subject matter I try to eliminate details and see the subject in shapes of values and planes and this is how I’m trying to see the subject, void of detail a bit more on the abstract side. Its easier to simplify this way. Squinting your eyes when looking at the subject helps to eliminate detail.

Here is another Teton painting, 11×14. The mountains, trees and foreground where full of detail and I had to see past that for three quarters of the painting. Most of the painting is spent trying to get the value and color relationships right between the large dark and light shapes.

sorrounded by giants 11×14 small

sorrounded by giants 11×14 small flat

So this is how I’m trying to see the landscape, simplified shape and value. It takes an effort to see past the unimportant stuff but after a while it becomes second nature to visualize the shapes minus the detail.

It helps to start small when painting outside, 6×8, 8×10, You don’t have a large area to try and cover in a short time and you don’t have any room for unnecessary detail.

Painting The Tetons

This week I’m in Grand Teton National Park, painting for the Rocky Mountain Plein Air Painters “Paint the Parks” show.  It’s a nice break from the heat of my home in Tucson, AZ, but the scenery is amazing.  This is one of  my favorite places to visit and paint.  Here are a few pics from my trip so far.  I’ll be posting more later.
 

Dramatic Light

 
Light is the one thing that draws most artists to paint the landscape. Were all moved by color but its the quality of the light that creates the color.  Dramatic lighting creates stronger contrasts of both value and color.  Its usually early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light is the most dramatic. The shadows are longer and have more color variety in them and the lights are warmer and more intense. Below is a painting of sheep grazing in Tucumcari, NM. It was late in the afternoon and the contrast of warm and cool color was intensified by the long shadows. What I’m interested in is the subtle color changes within the shadow.

Cloud shadows also create more drama because they create more contrast. Below is a painting from The Wind River Valley in Wyoming. Its close to mid day when the light is flat but the cloud shadows in the foreground and the background create more interest and drama. Here the subtle color changes are in the light areas. This view is outside Dubois WY. The wind River is winding to the Absaroka Mountains.

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Dramatic Light

 
Light is the one thing that draws most artists to paint the landscape. Were all moved by color but its the quality of the light that creates the color.  Dramatic lighting creates stronger contrasts of both value and color.  Its usually early in the morning or late in the afternoon when the light is the most dramatic. The shadows are longer and have more color variety in them and the lights are warmer and more intense. Below is a painting of sheep grazing in Tucumcari, NM. It was late in the afternoon and the contrast of warm and cool color was intensified by the long shadows. What I’m interested in is the subtle color changes within the shadow.

Cloud shadows also create more drama because they create more contrast. Below is a painting from The Wind River Valley in Wyoming. Its close to mid day when the light is flat but the cloud shadows in the foreground and the background create more interest and drama. Here the subtle color changes are in the light areas. This view is outside Dubois WY. The wind River is winding to the Absaroka Mountains.

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Review of Lukas 1862 paints

The last few months I’ve been using Lukas 1862 oil paints in different venues. I’ve used them in plein air painting, demos, large and small studio paintings. I’ve made some comparisons to the brands I usually use as far as mix ability and tinting strength.
Lukas 1862 paints have been produced in Germany since, you guess it 1862. They also make a student grade called Lukas Studio, I haven’t tried them.

The 1862 colors are mixed with linseed oil, non yellowing sunflower oil and bees wax which is supposed to give the paint a more buttery consistency as well as a quicker drying time. All this is easily found on the internet. I’m not a chemist so I have no opinion about the make up, although they claim to be very lightfast and permanent.

Lukas paints are found at Jerry’s Artarama and can be bought on line at www.jerrysartarama.com or at their stores around the country.

In the last 3 months I’ve found Lukas paintis to be very similar to utrecht paints as far as consistency in mixing and tinting strength. They are also comparable to Utrecht in price. When compared to Winsor Newton and Old Holland paints ( I had to take out a loan to get these) the tinting strength is not as strong but the price of Lukas paints are a fraction of the cost.

I know as artists were not supposed to think about the cost of paints and materials, only use whats considered the “best”, but life doesn’t always allow us that luxury, especially when putting kids through school and other things I consider more important than painting. ( yes, there are things more important then painting).

Lukas paints also have a drying element to them. For the few months that I’ve used them they have dried on the canvas over night, I live in the desert, Tucson AZ, so they probably dry faster here. The drying time can be both good and bad, there are times when I like the paint to remain wet so I can work back into it and mess with edges and blending. Drying overnight though can be an advantage when I want to work back into a dry painting to achieve cleaner color variation.

The quick drying aspect is handy when I’m traveling and I need my paintings to dry fast on the road. I recently taught 3 workshops in NY, Kansas City and the Chicago area and the fast drying aspect of the paints really helped with the demos and studies. The faster they dried the less hassle they were to deal with while traveling.

As far as the buttery consistency in mixing Lukas paints I didn’t notice too much difference from what I usually use and I’m not sure I want my paints to mix like butter anyway. Sounds too mushy.

Below are some outdoor and studio paintings I did using Lukas paints.

For the most part I used Titanium white, cadmium yellow, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue. Then as modifiers I used permanent orange, cyan blue and cobalt violet hue. Overall I found the tinting strength to be good, as well as the consistency when mixing and painting. The drying time can be helpful when traveling and painting outside and the price is very good.

Lake Zurich
11×14

Kansas City Workshop June 20,21,and 23

Starting Friday June 20 I’ll be teaching a 3 day workshop at the Buena Vista Studios in Roeland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. The workshop will focus on How to Improve Your Color Sense. We will be using photographic references and out door color sketches.

The goal is to understand the colors on your palette so you can use them to best represent light in your landscape, not how to copy the photograph, which is boring at best.

One of the ways to develop an understanding of color is to use color schemes, a predetermined set of colors from the color wheel that can give your painting a particular mood or color harmony. Color schemes also help you to develop your own sense of color and allows you to stay away from just copying the photograph.

Below is my palette with an analogous color scheme of red violet, red, red orange and orange with the compliment of blue green.

I used this palette to paint the landscape below.

Color schemes are a good way to experience different color combinations and helps you focus on value not color. Below is a painting done with a triadic color scheme of blue-violet, red orange and yellow green.

To register for the workshop, visit www.philstarke.com/workshops/

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