Just one thing

If you have ever gone outdoors to paint en plein air, or if you are using a photo for your reference, I am sure you will recognise the feeling of being overwhelmed by detail. There is just too much of it! And the tendency can be to try and paint it all in.

The only problem with this is that the resulting painting can look messy and without a focus. The viewer doesn’t know what the painting is about because we have confused them with too many points of interest.

What I am learning is that it is much better to hone in on just one focal point, one centre of interest, one main player, and let the rest of the painting support that one thing.

Let me show you what I mean.

I painted the snow-scene above a couple of years ago on a freezing day in the hills. What attracted my attention and made me want to paint it was the light on the distant snow-capped mountains. Yes, the buildings were interesting as well, and I added the foreground tree because it was there.

Big mistake number 1. You don’t need to paint things just because they are there!

This tree became a problem. Where does your eye go when you look at the painting? To the light on the far hills (my intention), or to the tree in the foreground? There is a conflict of interest here.

So I decided to see what I could do to rectify the situation and save the painting. I opened up a copy of it on my tablet in a free app called Infinite Painter, and began to play around with it, first removing the tree, (1), and then adding in a bit more shadow on the snow in the foreground to draw the eye into the distance, (2). This is a good trick!

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Then I added some twigs in the foreground snow and the odd rock as well to try and create a path to lead the eye backwards, (3), but abandoned these in the final new studio painting (4). I chose not to paint them because they weren’t really necessary as I made the light on the mountains stronger so your eye is lead there anyway.

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4 final painting

I hope I’ve made a better painting second time around by simplifying the scene, highlighting (literally) the focal point, and leading the eye there by the tonal values. The foreground distraction has gone, so we now know what the painting is about. It tells a story.

the original plein air painting

the studio painting

What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Thanks for reading this – please give a thumbs up if you have found it helpful.

#centreofinterest #enpleinair #learningtopaint #snowscene #oilpainting #focalpoint

Creating imaginary landscapes

Here’s a fascinating way to boost your creativity and your imagination.

I have recently been re-reading a watercolour painting book from the 1980’s that has been sitting on my bookshelf and gathering dust for many a year. It is by an American artist called Claude Croney, and in it he describes one method for seeing patterns rather than objects and using these patterns to fire up your creative imagination.

I gave it a go and was pleasantly surprised by the results. So let me share it with you as it might be something you want to do, especially when stuck indoors on a cold winter’s day!

Go from this…

…to this!

The method

1. Find a photo of something that is NOT a landscape but has areas of good tonal contrast. A black and white photo is best.

2. Place a viewfinder onto the photo and select an area that looks interesting with good shapes.

3. Make a thumbnail sketch of the shapes you see using just three values

4. Look at this value sketch from every angle until you see a landscape in it

5. Paint the landscape, making any adjustments you need for it to work.

So, let me show you what I came up with.

The photo

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I took this photo (1) in the summer in Annecy, France, but for this exercise I was not looking to paint the beautiful scenery. I zoomed in on the group of people in the left corner as these gave me more value contrast and random shapes, (2).

I turned the photo into black and white on my tablet (easy to do in Google photos), and then used a viewfinder to select an area that looked interesting.

I then painted a small thumbnail by copying the shapes I could see, firstly painting everything that was either grey or black (3), and then painting in the black patterns (4).

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Then came the fun part, and it took me a while turning the thumbnail this way and that before I began to see “landscapes” within it.

Here’s what I saw first.

The white part looked like a snowy mountain ridge receding into the distance. From there I was able to imagine the bottom left dark shape as a hillside of fir trees and the right hand shape as a clifftop. So far so good.

I then attempted a thumbnail in colour to see if this idea would actually work.

Whilst I liked the portrait layout and some aspects of the picture, I was unhappy with that big lump on the right hand side. it seemed like an ugly and unnecessary intrusion into the picture. So I tried a second time, cutting down the area of pine trees and removing the brown mass completely. This left a better composed picture. But it was all a bit boring and – yawn – “seen before”.

Time for another attempt. I turned the original three-value thumbnail around again and saw another landscape idea lurking there.

I saw a well lit pathway passing between some trees and heading towards a bright sky. I sketched it in pencil and then did another colour study in watercolour. Although not entirely original, this did seem to hold more promise than my first attempt so I decided to use this idea to paint a small study in oils.

The final painting

Click through to watch my progress, starting with the basic value scheme and then adding more detail as time went on.

I hope you have found this interesting. Why not give it a go?

#landscapes #oilpainting #paintingtips #watercolourpainting

Plein air adventure – the olive tree

Here’s an exclusive video that you won’t find anywhere else but here on my blog. It’s just over 6 minutes long. And you have the chance to buy the original painting from the link at the end of this post.

I went out into the countryside to try out my new pochade box and forgot to take the video camera and tripod with me, so just used my phone handheld. Amazing what you can do with that! Hope you enjoy the video and find it helpful.

Buy this painting

The painting in the video is for sale right here!

Just click on the button below to purchase this piece of original artwork. It is 8″ x 8″ oil on board. (Postage included in the price.)

US$ 95.00

Buy now

#enpleinair #learningtopaint #oilpainting #olivetree