Why you should copy the masters

How copying can make you a better painter, faster.

I suspect that all of us who love to paint want to improve, and to do so as quickly and easily as possible. There are all sorts of ways and methods out there that can help us, including of course regular practice.

But many of the great painters of the past learned their trade by copying from the masters who had gone before. This was how they learned and improved and became great themselves.

So what about us? Can copying a painting that someone else has done be of help to us, and who should we copy?

How does copying help us?

1. It’s a shortcut to learning techniques. Those who have gone before us have already learned the techniques that we struggle with. By copying their paintings we absorb their knowledge and methods and so quickly learn the best ways to achieve the results we are looking for.

2. It helps us develop our own style. We copy those we seek to emulate, those artists and paintings that inspire and excite us. If photorealism is your thing, then you will gravitate to copying photorealist paintings. If you are into the impressionists, you will naturally pick some of those to copy. This is an easy way to help you define your own style of painting.

Julian Merrow-Smith / my copy

Above is a painting by one of my favourite artists, Julian Merrow-Smith, and if you use the slider on the right of the painting you can reveal my copy. Remember, It’s not about making an exact replica, it’s about learning skills and developing your own style.

I learned so much in copying it. I learned to mix the right colour and value and put it down in one stroke and then leave it alone, I learned a bit about his method of painting trees. I learned a lot about making the building shine in the sunlight by painting it a bit too light and the rest a bit too dark. I learned that a stroke of thick paint is better than several strokes of thinner paint. And it took me less than an hour to gain all this knowledge!

Edward Wesson / My copy

Here’s a second painting, this time in watercolour, copied from another fabulous artist, the late Edward Wesson. His painting is on top of mine (slide the slider to see both).

What did I learn this time? I learned to paint simply with simple shapes and one-colour washes. I learned to put down a wash and then leave it alone to dry (no fiddling), and I learned the value of a limited palette of colours. All good stuff!

So, in my view copying is not only good, but it is an essential way to learn to paint. Give it a go and see what you can learn!

#learningtopaint #JulianMerrowSmith #oilpainting #copyingapainting #EdwardWesson #watercolourpainting #learningfromthemasters

Planning to fail…

Failing to plan is planning to fail!

I was reminded of this saying today as I am preparing for two new adventures.

The first is that I have been asked by Artefacto School Online to create an art course for them for beginners in watercolour. This has made me revisit my watercolours after a period of painting solely in oil or gouache. And, as I’m sure many of you will know, you need to really plan a painting in watercolour for it to succeed. In oils you can muck about a bit as you are free to change anything along the way, add lights over darks, scrape off and start again if need be, and go with the flow.

But with watercolour you need to plan. The end result of not planning is often failure.

What do I mean by planning? It means working out your composition beforehand on paper, making a tonal value plan, thinking through the whole painting process (in watercolour this involves initial light washes, followed by mid-tones and then a few darks or textural marks), and imagining in your mind the finished picture, not as a photo, but as your finished painting. Then you know what you are aiming for and you have a route map to get you there.

This is planning to succeed! And in watercolour it is essential.

So, I am practising these things and planning my course. I’ll let you know when it is available online.

The second adventure

This is coming up this month and involves a painting trip to the Matterhorn mountain in Switzerland. Having painted Mont Blanc last autumn, I am now inspired to paint the Matterhorn, so soon we are off to give it a go.

And again this needs lots of planning so as not to fail. At this stage the planning is deciding on the painting kit to take. I’ve spent ages on this; tweaking bits, removing stuff, adding in new bits, starting over… but I now think I have the right kit. I’m taking my homemade pochade box that holds two panels 8″ (20cm) high and up to 12″ (30cm) wide and my water-mixable oil paints, and also a small Portable Painter Micro gouache set and sketchbook. That should cover most eventualities.

With temperatures forecast to be below freezing this may all be a challenge – but I’m up for a bit of extreme plein air!

My planning has also involved reading about the early mountaineer and artist Edward Whymper who finally reached the summit in 1865, being the first man ever to do so. Now there is a cable car and a restaurant there. How times change!

Here below is a description of the Matterhorn, which gets me excited to go there: “A rock tower, pyramidal in shape, it contrasts sharply with its white neighbouring peaks of the Pennine Range. Often they stand in serene silence, giving no sign of the forces of destruction wearing them away. . . . You can hear the clamourous uproar of these forces ravaging the Matterhorn. You can see the rockfalls that grind away at its cliffs. Scarcely an hour passes, day or night, when rocks are not falling. Frequently they start avalanches that thunder down the steep walls, raising clouds of dust like a chain explosion.

Though the summit brow of the Matterhorn is white, it has only a few patches of snow elsewhere to shield its sides from the sun’s rays. The rocky cliffs expand by day and contract with night cold; this constant loosening process explains the rockfalls. A rock mountain also absorbs more heat than one blanketed in snow, for snow reflects sunlight. This aura of warmth around the Matterhorn causes turbulent air currents; it condenses moisture because of its contrast with the cooler air surrounding the mountain. Storm clouds hover over the Matterhorn when the sun is bright on neighbouring peaks. Lightning plays around its head, bolts shatter its spires and towers. Savage gales and torrential rains flay its rocky slopes. While other Pennine peaks slumber in peace, the Matterhorn is always a battleground of the elements.” (From “Climbing the Matterhorn – A Collection of Historical Mountaineering Articles on the Brave Attempts to Scale One of the Highest Peaks in the Alps”)

I’ll let you know how I get on and post my paintings here.

Thanks for reading! Please give a thumbs up if you would like to 🙂 It is much appreciated.

#enpleinair #switzerland #pochadebox #watermixableoils #matterhorn #zermatt #extremepleinair #portablepaintermicro

The power of counterchange in a painting

One of the main building blocks of composition is the idea of counterchange.

So, what is this? And why is it so powerful? And, more importantly, how can I use it in my paintings?

What is counterchange?

The dictionary describes counterchange as: to change parts or to contrast colours or values. And, as we know, anything that brings about change or contrast is great for creating powerful paintings. Here’s an example from a watercolour painting I did years and years ago when I first started teaching art online.

Flight – watercolour (Andy Walker)

This flock of seagulls were taking flight because a bird of prey had begun to circle above them. You can see him on the top left. Now, we all know that seagulls are white, and that is how they are painted against the dark trees in the background.

But look what happens when they hit the sky. They suddenly turn black! At first glance you don’t even notice this, but it is what the eye actually sees in nature, and is therefore what we should paint. Just think about how the seagulls would simply disappear if we continued painting them white!

This counterchange makes the painting. It adds a level of nuance that is really important. When I showed this painting to my wife a few moments ago, she didn’t even notice that the colours had changed! All she saw were seagulls taking flight. When I pointed out the counterchange to her she was amazed!

High on a Hill – Acrylic

You can see the same effect in this second painting. The fence posts are counterchanged against the stone wall. As the sunlight hits them above the wall they are very light, and I painted the background a shade darker around them to emphasize this. The same posts in the shadow of the wall are darker and subtly blend with the wall colours and values. It would not have had the same impact if they had been painted white all the way down.

So, look for ways you can introduce counterchange into your paintings and see if you can surprise anyone with the results! Thanks for reading!

#learningtopaint #compositioninwatercolour #watercolourpainting #compositioninpaintng #counterchange