Painting the impression – making ART

Edgar Degas once said “Art is not what we see but what you can make others see”, and I think this was at the heart of impressionism. As artists we do not need to replicate exactly what is in front of us. In many ways a camera does this for us. We are called on to be a bit more creative! Our goal is not to copy the subject but to interpret it. I’ve always been a little self-conscious when painting outdoors and suddenly realise there is someone watching over my shoulder. My immediate thought is that they will be criticising my efforts and saying to themselves that I haven’t got this bit right, or I’ve left out that tree over there, or the roof is not really that colour. Most people want an exact representation of the scene to appear on the paper or canvas and if you don’t do this they assume you’re not a very good artist! (I was once told by a chap who was looking over my shoulder and obviously unimpressed by my impressionistic sketching, that he had “a cousin who painted and he was very good!” Thanks very much!)

But what if we can make others see what we are seeing or feeling about a subject? What if we go beyond copying what is there and begin to spread our artistic wings and create something completely new? What if we push the boundaries? Now we are making ART and not just painting pictures!

Let’s make art!

I want to share this little 7 minute video with you which shows how I approach making ART from a photo reference. I hope you enjoy it and find it helpful. Then go and try it for yourself and let your creativity flow!

If you are interested in finding out more about loosening up and making the most of painting from photos then check out my online course How to paint creatively from photos.

And if you have enjoyed this post please give it a thumbs up, and make any comments in the box. Thanks

#learningtopaint #paintingtips

3 ways to find inspiration in the landscape

Here are three really interesting ways to find new subjects in the landscape.

Have you ever wandered around looking for something to paint and ended up going home without even having made a sketch? You’ve maybe spent an hour walking the streets of your town or plodding over the fields near your house, getting tired and thirsty and eventually heading home frustrated and fed up. That wonderful scene that you thought you might paint proved to be elusive and nothing grabbed your attention. I know exactly how you feel. But let me try and help you out by sharing three ways of finding inspiration in the landscape. Give them a go and see if you can always head home with a sketch, a drawing or a painting.

1. Turning through 360 degrees

I found this idea in a great book by an artist called Richard Pikesley. The book is called Landscape Painting – The Complete Guide, and you can get it on Amazon.

I highly recommend it as it is one of the most informative plein air books I have read. It’s full of great advice and ideas and the author has a very informal and friendly way of writing that almost makes you feel as if he is standing beside you and chatting away.

On page 23 he suggests the following exercise: Stand or sit somewhere fairly open in a natural rather than man-made environment. Rapidly draw or paint one of the views available to you from your chosen spot. Limit yourself to what you can comfortably see in one ‘eyeful’. When you reach a point where you’re happy to stop, turen a little so that you can see the next section from the same point. Start a second drawing or painting so that its left hand edge would join on to the right hand side of the first image. Keep going with more pictures until you have returned to your starting point.

So, I went out and did just that!

What did I learn? Well, it was fascinating, and I intend to do more like this. Firstly, I realised that there are drawings to be made everywhere and anywhere. You don’t need to look for a specific subject. Everything becomes your subject! Secondly, I was able (as he does in his book) to use a mixture of drawing and painting to enhance and explore the overall picture. Some areas I left as just pencil lines, and other areas I added paint. I was free to do this because each panel was a separate picture as it were, but I loved the mix, and is something that may well be worth exploring within the limits of a single painting. Finally, I found out that the dirt track that headed diagonally away from me in the first panel, was horizontal in the last panel, even though in theory the last panel should join onto the first. I have no idea why this should be, but it did make me think anew about what I saw in front of me!

2. It’s behind you!

Here’s another idea for finding painting subjects when you are outdoors. Perhaps you have found an interesting scene to paint and you have made a sketch of it and are ready to pack up but not just head home. Why not give yourself a challenge? Turn around through 180 degrees and paint what is behind you. Whatever it is. Even if it is ugly or uninteresting! This will challenge your abilities to find beauty and subject matter anywhere.

3. Walk a minute

Go for a walk and put on the stopwatch or alarm on your phone so that it alerts you after 1 minute. When the alarm goes off, stop walking and sketch whatever is around you. Then start the timer again and stop and sketch when the alarm rings again. By doing this you are forced to draw or paint a whole variety of things that you may normally have ignored. If you like a long walk, then set the timer for every 5 or 10 minutes!

Thanks for reading this post and I hope some or all of this has inspired you! Please click on the thumbs up below if you liked this post. And join my mailing list to be kept informed of all my doings!

#creativepaintingideas #enpleinair #sketching

Plein air adventure – the olive tree

Come along with me as we take a walk with the dogs into the olive groves and paint in a semi-abstract way.

September 2022. A hot day in Southern Spain. I knew that the local farmer had just watered his olive trees, which they do about once a month by flooding the “field”. This transforms the dry and dusty landscape for a couple of days until finally the water sinks into the soil, creating a sticky mud. But for these two days the water sits there on the surface, reflecting the sky and creating wonderful patches of bright blue amongst the ochre of the land and the green of the trees. It was time to get out there and paint.

The dogs got excited as I put on my old straw hat and gathered my oil kit together, and I knew I had to take them with me. They are safe and free to roam in the valley, well away from any roads and traffic. And they can chase rabbits to their hearts content.

My kit

I try to take as little as possible with me, especially when walking out into the countryside. So here’s what I took that day:

1. a homemade folding palette that clips onto the legs of an easel to form a shelf. When it is unfolded the left side carries a range of brushes and on the right side I clip on some paper towel. In the center palette part I have taped down a sheet of grey palette paper which is easy to clean or throw away at the end.

2. a few water-mixable oil paints – the fewer the better both for carrying and for producing colour harmony. I used two blues, ultramarine and cerulean, permanent yellow medium and pyrrole red. Plus titanium white. That’s really enough to create all the colours I’ll need.

3. a sealed water container and a water pot

4. a mix of brushes

And that’s all, apart from a 30 x 30cm gessoed MDF board to paint on and a lightweight aluminium easel.

So, let’s get going!

I walked up and down the path a few times looking for the most interesting tree shape, and eventually plumped for this one. It was a bit lopsided and had some interesting shadows cast on the aged trunk. Some of these trees are hundreds of years old and have been cultivated by generations of the same family through those years, and still produce a healthy crop of olives today. I set up in a patch of shade cast from a tree behind me and quickly set to work. I’m trying to loosen up and create something of what I feel about a place as well as what I see in front of me. So my aim was not to cover the whole board with paint but to leave much of it white and to make dribbles and splashes around the main subject. These should connect it to the edges of the picture, avoiding a cut-out loo to the main subject. I drew in the rough outline of the tree, the bank of earth behind it and the olives behind that, using pure red paint. I wanted to leave patches of this red showing through the green of the tree to create a bit of a zing to the colours. Then with quick and bold marks I attacked the board, dashing in a mixture of muted greens and browns, not aiming to paint every leaf, but to get the feel of the leaf masses that were there. The bank was added with an orange mix and the background trees with a green-purple.

Using horizontal strokes of cerulean and dark green I added some hint of the sky reflected in the water. But I wanted a more abstract and looser feel to the whole picture so I splashed clean water onto this area and allowed it to mix with the paint and run down in dribbles. I also spattered on some colours with watery paint (this is where water-mixable oils come into their own – there’s no harm to the artist or the environment!).

The whole painting took maybe half an hour or so. It was a physical thing – my arms flailing around and much standing back and stepping forward towards the easel. It was also fun, and I was quite pleased with the end result. For me it captured the scene. Oh, and the dogs were unsuccessful in their hunt, so I’m pleased to report that no rabbits were harmed during the making of this artwork! I hope this is encouraging for you. If you liked the post please give it a thumbs up. Thanks