More artists: Arman T. Manookian

A notice from “I require Art” on Facebook made me look at Arman T. Manookian, an American-Armenian painter who lived from 1904-1931. I was immediately attracted by the intensely colourful paintings – maybe in response to my growing dislike of dull winter landscapes with bare trees in this seemingly endless New York winter.

Manookian immigrated to the US as a young man, studied art and illustration and then signed up as a Marine. He later settled in Hawaii, but must have been deeply unhappy, and finally took his own life at the age of 27. I found this very tragic and wondered how the paradisiac scenes in his paintings go along with such a sad story.

Looking at his paintings, I felt like a sponge, soaking up colours to feel alive again.

References

I require art on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IRequireArt

John Seed on Arman T. Manookian in the Huffington Post : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-seed/the-other-armenian-arman_b_606114.html (accessed March 2, 2104)

Tutor report: Assignment 3

Overall Comments

Hello Patricia, thank you for submitting your work for Assignment 3. You have uploaded a substantial amount of work to your blog for me to assess and feedback on. It is great to see the amount of preparation and research that you are doing, well done.

Feedback on assignment 3. Landscape painting from mixed sources.

For this assignment you are required to:

Use a variety of sources, such as plein-air work, photographs, written notes and pencil sketches, to create a landscape painting.

Prep work.

Very good to see that you are aware of the differences that come with scaling up work, (assignment 3 notes, learning log) .

Also good that you focus on a particular aspects of the overall painting in your sketches and try to work out how best to capture different areas in watercolour. A close study of each element of the painting is always worth doing. The charcoal sketch has a strong composition, you have captured an angularity in the branches which contrasts well with the curve of the road and the abbey is well positioned. It’s fine to do a sketch study in other media than the final choice of media to get an idea of where the main colour areas are and how they fit together but you do also need to do colour tests and prep work in the actual media you are going to use too. (I see now that this comes lower down in your blog)

The later posts with small sketches in sketch book are too small to see properly.

You have done a lot of work on the tonal gradations, composition of the piece, and three larger scale paintings. You have thoroughly explored several different aspects of this scene. To push yourself further I think you needed to try different methods of paint application at this sketch stage and more inventive approaches in terms of the subject matter. From your written log entries I get the sense you yourself want to push your work further but are not sure how to do it. I will follow this up further on in the feedback.

Final painting

Some good qualities coming through Patricia. First attempt. The background has worked very well and the contrast between the light background and the dark foreground is effective, the branches set against a pale sky really bring out the spikey quality of the branches. I think the mid ground possibly doesn’t have enough differentiation in it from the distance as it comes towards the foreground, the maroon makes it look more detailed towards the back. The marks on the road give the painting a muddy appearance and it is difficult to read what is happening in that area. The actual trees seem to merge into the road

Your second attempt is clearer, and the background even better I would say. I can see you have tried to differentiate more in the mid ground between distant and near mid ground (if that makes sense!) but I’m still a little confused by the central tree like stump. The one that cuts across the middle of the ‘s’ bend in the road. The road would change colour and become less intense in color as it goes into the distance.

Careful painted detailed observation of just one tree in the foreground and how that compares with the colours around it may help you to get a clearer understanding of how to paint the foreground. I don’t know about this image as I haven’t seen a photograph or the original scene, but sometimes tree trunks are a lot lighter than the foliage around them. I think you have learnt quite a lot from this painting Patricia about how to start looking at perspective in landscape. I can see from your notes that you too have picked up on many of the things I have mentioned and it is really good that you are aware of all these things. Despite you being unhappy with the finished result I don’t think that is necessarily a negative thing as you are working through techniques and starting to find out what works and what doesn’t.

I definitely think you would have benefited from sketches on the spot. Even quick watercolour sketches, there is always so much more vibrancy to painting in situe, but also you cut out all the unnecessary detail that can come when working from photographs and you just paint the main elements required to get a good sense of the scene. You mention using invention at one point in your blog in your prep for this assignment and I would like to have seen some examples of invention in the colour composition for example

Well done for having a third attempt. The foreground is much easier to understand now. And the mid ground is clearer too. However I agree with you that it is much pleasanter to paint with more freedom to interpret the subject and wonder slightly what stopped you from taking that approach here? How would you have done it differently with more freedom? I’m sure that is what I would have wanted to see.

Thank you for sending the photo through. It is as I had thought and that is that the trees in the foreground are actually lighter than the foliage around them. You have captured this much more successfully in the second and third attempts and it makes all the difference. Sometimes it is necessary to leave to some of the things in the actual view you are painting as they don’t really add to the painting. In this case I think you could have left out the green ivy coloured trunks as they have become more of a focal point of this painting and I’m not sure if that is what you wanted.

Overall you have rendered this image quite well technically. It doesn’t have the life and vibrancy of some of your past work, but that is probably due to the subdued nature of the colours in the scene anyway. Also I think you are at a stage now where you probably need to start experimenting quite a lot more with how you apply the paint. Try very quick sketch paintings in situe and see what this throws up. Suggestions of objects are often more accurate at capturing the essence of a thing than laborious detailed painting. Play with the paint.

Feedback in on other work in the section .

Fairly brief feedback here Patricia as I have given more extensive feedback on the three pieces submitted for assignment 3.

The bridge in Central Park.

I have read your own comments and agree with them all. I too would like to see you experiment with more abstraction. But I understand that it is difficult to know where to start with this. However your first A4 watercolour sketch has some thing of the bridge in it, yet is almost entirely abstract too. Look at this a little further. I have attached a painting of mine which is moving toward abstraction, but isn’t completely abstract, This is one way to approach abstraction. Try to get the bare essentials of an image and then try to feel the rest of what you paint. There are other more methodical approaches to abstraction too which I will include some links too example of.

The mangos

These are beautiful little paintings with life and vibrancy in the colour. The paint application is spontaneous and captures my interest and the different approach to the shadows is also a good exercise too. Well done.

The bottles.

This work is coming along really well Patricia. You are working very hard, exploring the capabilities of the paint and you very successfully capture the glassy and reflective qualities of many of the bottles here. The five bottles is a well composed painting. You have approached it in different ways, pre mixed and not. The brown bottles are particularly effective and the wet in wet here adds a lovely watery quality to the glass. Well done for your courage – as you note!

Overall you are being very thorough in your approach. I feel you tighten up a lot in your final paintings whereas your sketch work has a more fluid and energetic feel to it. This often happens, in P1070093 – there is a lightness to the painting, whilst still being a good painting this is lost to some extent in P1070099, can you see the difference here? This is still a good rendition with a variety of convincing green. The left hand chair is slightly awkwardly positioned and perhaps some of the greens could have been a little less intense as they moved towards the back to enhance the perspective but overall this is very good. P1070121 is very tight. Some of my feedback from Ass 1 is still relevant Patricia, read through it again and see what there is that you can still act upon regarding quick painting exercises etc. You have covered each of the exercises in Part two very thoroughly Patricia.

Sketchbooks

Commented on above. It is difficult to get a real sense of a sketch book from a blog entry but some of the work above is from the sketch book. My overall impression is that the prep work you have done for the assignment is very comprehensive. Make sure you also do lots of sketching generally Patricia, just to develop a drawing vocabulary and to increase confidence in bold composition and colour observation, this will all come in useful in abstraction too.

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Your research and reflection on the artists in the gallery visits you have made is very insightful. You question the motivations and compare their work with their contemporaries and do further research after your visits. This is excellent and exactly what you should be doing. You mention the German artist Frieseke and question how his work is so cheerful given the political environment at the time (World War). This is an excellent question Patricia. What I also want to know is, how do the current politics affect your approach to painting? How does it affect what you choose to paint and the colours you use? Is it at all relevant to your work or is it something else that influences your subject matter and approach, if so what? What would you like your work to evoke, question or record? When you discuss the work of other artists remember to think about how it impacts on your own work too and comment on this in your log. You mention you aren’t able to predict how this gallery visit will impact on Ass 3. Perhaps not, but do think about how it impacts on your approach to art and painting as a whole.

I am interested to read that you would like to work in a more abstract way and I would recommend you try doing this as part of the course work. Try and approach some of the assignments in that way, do two versions of exercises if you are not confident about submitting abstract work at this stage as a final piece. I would be very interested to see this. You are following up recommended artists and thinking about and commenting on their work, this is great and I think it will have been very useful in your progress in terms of deciding what you do and don’t like and the direction of your own work.

Suggested reading/viewing

Thinking about the abstract interest you have mentioned. Kandinsky, Georgia O’Keefe, Agnes Martin, Miro just for starters.

Admittedly not working in watercolour but they will give you an idea of how they used colour and composition. A more modern day approach would be Tomma Abts work and Tauba Auerbach http://taubaauerbach.com/works.php

I think at this stage it would be useful for you to look them up and read about their influences and how they approached their painting.

Pointers for the next assignment. You are working well Patricia.

Continue to experiment with the paint application
Be braver with taking risks in your approach to the overall painting, have a go at a more abstract approaches.
Try the loosening up exercises from ass 2 feedback
Keep up the very good work!

Tutor name: Lisa O’Brien
Date: 29/1/14

At the end of part 3

I think part 3 of this course was quite important for me. The beginning focused on technical skills with mixing colour, and I enjoyed these exercises. I think I made nice progress in my use of the medium, colour intensity has improved and I can now mix and include a multitude of different colours in a painting. My washes have also improved and I feel much more comfortable with watercolours.

What I would like to improve on is the painting style. I think I have not yet really understood how to give room for the medium to develop its own life. I’m still too much trying to control, rather than letting watercolour effects do some of the work. To improve this, I think I will have to do more paintings on my own beyond the course exercises. Maybe choose simple topics and few colours and practice a quicker and looser style, just as my tutor suggested. I’m really eager to work with vivid colours, and the research I’ve done during this part of the course was highly inspirational.

But I will take a small break from coursework before tackling part 4. This is because part 4 is about landscape elements, and I want to wait until the winter is over before I get back to landscape topics. I want to make excursions outside the city to make new photographs and also to paint outside. Maybe I’ll change my mind later on, but for now I have different plans.

For now, I’m intending to switch focus from watercolour to the drawing course and complete its final assignment. While doing this and as time permits, I would like to review the basics in watercolours, making simple studies to practice washes and maybe also experiment a bit. I will also see whether I can include some research and exhibition visits.

I’ve also finally taken up the suggestion of having a small sketchbook that I can take always with me. But it is very difficult to fit drawing into everyday life, because I’m usually busy and stressed. The first two drawings were made recently during lunchtime, at the Ford Foundation building. This building has an atrium with tropical plants and trees, and people are allowed to sit and have a break. I drew the top of a tree and a flower.

While working on assignment three, I also made three small pastel studies of fruit. The assignment painting was so dull in its colours that I needed something to counterbalance this, so I chose arrangements in vivid colours. The next step will be to do this kind of mini-still life in watercolour as well.

A first attempt was made with the Lemons and Tangerines. As a start, I made some sketches and experimented with composition in my sketchbook. I had in mind to use a square format for the watercolour, but this meant placing the bowl somewhat awkwardly to the left or cutting the shade off. On the sketches it looked as if the landscape format was better able to accommodate the shapes of bowl with shade, but I found the square format more interesting and therefore stuck with it.

Recently I bought sable brushes, and this was the first time I used them. It made a huge difference. I used a large brush, which was just great. It was able to take up a lot of paint so I was able to paint large areas in a single go, but with its fine tip, I could also make very fine lines. I overworked the study so the difference is not very visible, but in its earlier stages the painting was really magnificent with the bright colours of lemon and orange against the light green tone of the bowl.

I read so often that synthetic brushes are comparable to natural brushes, and I have used synthetic brushes exclusively until now. But I think I will switch, because the difference is remarkable and I seem to get along much better with sable brushes.

The painting is a bit overworked and I think I will repeat it, trying to get the effects that I want with less layering. My main focus was on the tonal values and I think while trying to get these correct, I overcomplicated the painting. In particular, I saw that the green sheet of paper under the bowl had a dark tone where it met the white table, but under the bowl, its tone was lighter than the lower contour of the green bowl. I tried to capture this in graded washes, but these became irregular with brush strokes and unpredictable flow of pigment, so I added more layers which resulted in a dull tone.

The problem is that there are very soft gradations in tone which could be worked out more easily with graphite, coloured pencil or opaque paint, because these media permit more control and reworking. With watercolours, I have not yet found out how to approach the problem. There were these earlier exercises of monochrome tonal studies which focused on the issue, and I remember how technically difficult I found them. There was an artificial element in that they demanded to make a firm decision where one tonal area ended and another begun. But when I look at my objects, there are soft gradations not clear boundaries within a coloured area. So I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle this in the future.

But despite the overworking, I found the reflection and three-dimensionality of the lemon quite successful.

Roses

I bought a bouquet of roses – rose petals with a yellow inside. They look wonderful. I made sketches in coloured pencil and HB pencil before painting them in watercolour. The sketches belong to the drawing course, so I won’t include them here, but I’ll include the watercolours.

The first rose became a bit too dark for my taste in some areas. I still have to experiment with getting the tones right. I used Winsor & Newton watercolours in tubes and a big sable brush, with rose madder and Turner’s yellow and sepia for the background as main tones, plus chromoxide green and some more red and brown tones for the shades and the stem. With the second painting, I used fewer colours, trying to improve the clarity of overall impression, but this was compromised by the uneven background wash. Need more practice…

Assignment 3

I had been at odds with the suggested exercises to prepare Assignment 3. I wasn’t able to follow the procedure due to weather conditions, and had to adapt to what was possible within the time available. After the compositional sketches and line and colour studies I did not feel sufficiently prepared for tackling the assignment. I also found my chosen scene only moderately attractive and did not know how I might develop it into an interesting painting.

The suggested types of studies hadn’t felt right for my scene, because they didn’t seem to address its particular difficulties. For example, there were the complex tree shapes which merited closer study, because I hadn’t been able to disentangle them with the line study. I also wanted to do a close-up of the building to look at the size relationships of main forms and smaller elements. Then I wanted to test techniques how to paint the mid-ground silhouette of trees against the Hudson river to the left – it might work well if done wet-in-wet to let the darker colour soak into the lighter background area, but I felt this needed some experimentation.

I had detected an area of negative background behind a light tree shape in my photograph, and I thought a close-up of this might help for the final painting. Then there was the challenge of sizing up – so far, my studies had been small in the 23 x 30 standard or the A4 watercolour sketchbook. It’s a different thing combining these elements into a picture of A3 or larger, and I felt I needed some practice on the larger scale as well.

I decided to devote some more time for these aspects, before proceeding to the assignment painting. For me, this meant attempting to find my own way of approaching the topic, beyond the suggestions in the course materials. One of the aims was to develop a style and technique that would work for me, and I did not want to go into photorealism. I thought about trying out an approach of omitting detail altogether and focus only on main forms and colours.

More studies

My first study was a technical sketch in the A4 watercolour sketchbook. I wanted to try out an alternative to using masking fluid for the lighter areas of the branches. The idea was to scratch into a layer of wet watercolour to create light marks. I tried a wooden stick (did not work), my fingernails (not bad, but messy because they are too short and I smeared the paint), and a knife (worked best). Using two fine brushes, I tried to delineate some branches by adding a fine dark contour and dissolving one side of it over the ligther area. The technique created nice effects, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to apply it to the final painting.

Next, I made a detail study of the Cloister building’s main architectural shapes (6B pencil, 23 x 30 sketchbook). I found this helpful for getting better acquainted with the building. On the other hand, I knew I wouldn’t include all the details in the final painting because the building would appear only very small.

To prepare sizing up to the larger assignment piece, I made a charcoal sketch of the entire scene in A3. I think this was quite successful in its composition and how it outlined the main elements and their size relationships.

Then I did a pastel study with the aim of testing colour relationships. By some intuition, I chose dark green paper for this sketch, and this proved to be a difficult choice. The light colours came out nicely, but all the darker tones sank into the background and made the compositional elements almost unrecognizable. I worked over the sketch by blending lighter tones into the dark areas, and this lifted the entire sketch. I exaggerated some colours which were only slightly apparent in the photo, for example the touch of violet in the branches before the Cloisters, or an orange tone in the earth tones of the ground close to the viewer. This gives the sketch an almost psychedelic ambience, which I found interesting but did not want to introduce into the final painting. What I liked about this study was that the pastels forced me to omit details and focus on the main shapes.

The final painting ?

After a day’s break, I felt ready to approach the final watercolour painting. I started with a pencil outline and used a bit of masking fluid for the windows of the cloister tower and the light areas of some branches. I then layed a light blue-grey wash for the sky and river in the background, and added the distant background shapes to the sides of the river. I also laid a wash for the road and diluted the contours to avoid having them cutting through the trees of the foreground.

I found painting the Cloister building and the upper branches relatively straightforward, but had enormous difficulties with the foreground trees and the mid-tones in the middle ground. There is a central tree who changes its value from lighter than the background to darker than the background, and I couldn’t get to grips how to paint this. Similarly, I constantly lost focus which tree or branch I was painting and felt as if I always had the wrong colour intensity on the brush.

Overall, I am quite skeptical about this painting. There are successful elements, for example the sky and the distant background shapes, which capture the light gray overall atmosphere of the winter’s day. But I’m not very satisfied with how I painted the foreground and middle ground with all the trees and branches. There was also a problem with the colours, because I tried to capture those grey-brown tones of the winter scene and this resulted in very muddy overall colours.

I felt that I had been focusing too much on details and decided to make another painting of the same scene. I wanted to focus more on the larger shapes and use pigments and water more generously. This second painting is lighter and more fluid, but it repeats the overall muddy colour impression. I stopped painting because I was so dissatisfied with my attempts and felt that I had enough of my chosen scene for that moment. In particular, I found that the dark branches looked dead if they were not accompanied by lighter areas, but I was not in the mood to work out all those details for a second time.

Interestingly, the pencil underdrawing for the second study was much clearer in the tree shapes. But the coloured wash for the middle ground covered it and so I had lost my guides for those shapes, which made me lose confidence for the entire painting. The subject I chose proved very difficult to paint and I was really struggling with technical problems and how to handle watercolours in a painting of that size.

I’m not sure what to do about the assignment. The paintings I’ve made so far are not really to my satisfaction, but I’m finding it difficult to keep up interest and enthusiasm for the scene I chose. I’d rather continue with something else – a subject with friendlier colours and more positive overall mood than those winter landscapes with bare branches and muddy colours. I’d love to paint some flowers and maybe focus on details to avoid being overwhelmed by observational and technical difficulties.

Some more reflections

I wasn’t very confident to approach Assignment 3 after I had made the suggested preparatory work, which in my case consisted in a series of compositional sketches from the photographs I had taken on the spot, plus a line and a watercolour study of my chosen scene. Maybe it would have been different if I had made studies on the spot and visited The Cloisters several times to take photos on different times of the day and under different weather conditions, and also had collected some objects. It would certainly have added more pictures to choose from for the final painting.

I’m considering having a second go and doing an entirely different painting for assignment three, maybe getting back to my initial idea of using photos of Tuscany landscapes gathered from the web. Another idea was to make another try with the chosen photo of The Cloisters, but approach it in a different style – focusing on clear cut shapes and clean colours, no mixing on the fly. I also think it would be better to soak the paper and tape it onto a board, because my paper buckles on the block when wet and this makes painting difficult.

The Cloisters, third try

I decided to stay with my chosen topic and just give it another try. I painted this one in several sessions distributed over a week. I tried to be more cautious with the light and dark tones and the light and dark twigs. I seem to get along quite well with painting only for a short time and then making a pause. It protected me from getting exhausted and impatient. The final session in which I finished the painting was longer. Maybe I could still improve the painting by intensifying the contrasts, but I decided to stop and leave it at that because I felt that I’ve exhausted my enthusiasm for the topic.

I think it was good to try again and overall the result has improved. But I also think that this was not my best choice of topic. I’d have preferred to paint something more colourful and visually appealing. I felt obliged to remain truthful to the colours of my photo because I see the assignment as a technical exercise rather than a piece of art, but I must also say that I find this type of work not really satisfying. I understand that Level 1 courses are about acquiring technical skills and I have focused on this task, but for the future I’d like to develop more freedom in interpreting my subject.

Exhibition visit: Metropolitan Museum of Art

To prepare assignment 3, which will develop a landscape painting, I decided to focus on landscapes on my first visit to the museum. Apparently the entire collection of the museum can be viewed and searched online, including listings of each individual room in that huge museum. From my online preparation, I decided to focus on gallery 769, which presents several landscape oil paintings. I had only 2 hours time before work, so found it made sense to focus on a topic particularly relevant for the assignment. On my way through the museum to my chosen gallery, I couldn’t resist visiting a special exhibition of 18^th century pastels, and also had a quick look at the musical instruments galleries. I’ll certainly return to the museum, there was so much more to see.

Special exhibition: 18^th century pastels

I like to use pastels from time to time, and have made one or two pastel colour and tonal studies for watercolour works, but I have no formal training how to use the medium. I thought it was a good idea to look at this exhibition to see real works from close. There were mostly portraits, but also some landscapes and waterscapes. At first I just admired the delicacy of the portraits, but after the fifth or sixth my attention shifted to technical details and I discovered that they seemed to follow a technical principle: There was a background of larger shapes for face, hair, areas of clothes in their particular colour and tonal value. Then on top of this were finer linear details to indicate contours, highlights and reflections. I was surprised to see the same principle appear also in the landscape paintings.

Adélaide Labille-Guiard, Madame Élisabeth de France
Jean Pillement, Shipwreck

The painter’s table

Very nice was the painter’s table also presented in that room: A small table with 3 drawers that had many compartments. These tables were used by pastel artists to group their pastels by colour. Artists did not mix their tones from selected base colours as with oils, but needed the exact hue readily prepared, and so built up huge collections.

Seeing this table resonated with my recent thoughts about organizing my watercolour materials by colour groups. Before part three, I had only 6 base colours of artist quality watercolours, plus my ancient Schmincke selection of pans with some more hues. But at the occasion of the mixing exercise, I had added many small tubes in different colour hues, and had put them all together in a box. This became a bit chaotic. I made notes in my book how I might organize them by base colours. Later I put the tubes in a tray with six compartments – red tones, blue tones, green tones and so on. This may sound quite obvious, but I felt as if I had made a real discovery. It made working with so many hues much easier.

Then recently when I prepared to use oil pastels for a watercolour painting, my first step was to re-organize each pastel set by colour groups. Analysing a set of pastels in this way was excellent to anticipate what I would be able to do with that particular set, very different from earlier approaches where I just saw that I had 2 different sets of 24 and one of 48, but wasn’t able to analyse the differences between each set in a systematic way.

Musical instruments

Among the many instruments, I was particularly attracted by the grand pianos. There were several historic grands presented, including some of the very early stages in the technical development of this instrument. I had a light bulb moment when I saw two large harps presented right next to the grands… A grand piano is a harp laid to one side with a wooden box around for resonance, and a keyboard attached instead of the musician directly touching the strings!

Gallery 769, American Impressionism (1880 – 1920)

Based on my notes made on the spot

William Merrit Chase (1849 – 1916): At the seaside (ca. 1892)

This was the first picture in the gallery and my point of entry to the topic of American Impressionism. Looking at this painting, I became again strongly aware of the difference between the two mediums oil on vanvas vs watercolour on paper. The clouds: solid and “man made”, deliberately shaped and massive, as opposed to the fluidity of watercolours.

Maurice Prendergast (1858 – 1924): Picnic by the Inlet (ca. 1918 – 1923)

According to the accompanying info, this painter had much experience with watercolours and monotype before turning to oil painting, and this paintings showed his increased proficiency with the medium. I found it a very modern painting. Modern in its looseness, in the omission of detail in faces, figures, trees. I also recognized the impressionist style of composing objects from dots of colour rather than as massive shapes.

Mary Cassatt (1844 – 1926): Lilacs in a window (ca. 1880 – 1935)

Just a lovely painting. I like flowers so much and am planning to take up this topic as soon as possible. My first attempts in various mediums were not so overly successful, but I’ll have another go. Shirley Trevena’s watercolour flowers impressed me so much and I can’t wait for the moment when I’ll have a little extra time for this.

There were several paintings of Childe Hassam (1859 – 1935) in this gallery, and I had been curious to see them. Childe Hassam had lived in Long Island, The Hamptons, which is the location I’d like to explore for the assignment.

Childe Hassam : July Fourteenth, Rue Daunou, 1910 (left painting)

This painting was made in Paris on the French National Holiday. It depicts crowds of people, flags, and the typical 5-story 19^th century Paris buildings, “Le vieux Paris”.

The painting ”Avenue of the Allies” (Great Britain, 1918) (middle) intrigued me by the thin application of paint, a different technique compared to the first painting although the painting style was similar. I found it very impressionistic, the scene was vibrant in colour despite the thin material on the canvas.

The subsequent paintings were made in a similar technique. The grey-brown unprimed canvas seemed to show through everywhere. Nevertheless the paintings were colourful and vibrant. I wondered wether this had to do with financial hardship – a technique developed to make the most effective use of paint when it was difficult to finance a thick layer of material? On the other hand, when looking close, there were also thick blobs of paint applied, which could have covered a much larger area if applied evenly.

Frederick Carl Frieseke (1874 – 1939): Summer (1914)

The painting showed a nude figure in a summer garden, with an impressionistic sunlight pattern on her body. The info table talked about painting style as if the painting showed a still life with vase on a table. I was puzzled: Had the nude not been perceived as scandalous in puritan America by the time it was painted? How came that a painter with a German name showed up in the gallery of American Impressionism? How was it possible he had the nerve to paint a nude in a summer garden as if paradise was on earth, in the year where World War I began?

From later research about the artist I found out that his German parents had emigrated to America, so that puzzle was solved. I concluded that the artist must have been able to close out political developments from his life and work. Maybe life in America wasn’t as affected by the approaching war as I thought. I perceive the great contrast in the depiction of nature, compared to the dark and sinister landscape paintings of Paul Nash, John Piper and Eric Ravilious whom I had explored in the previous research.

Robert Reid (1862 – 1929): Fleur de Lis (ca. 1895 – 1900)

This painting shows a young woman inmidst the flowers. The info table points out the correspondence between the softness of the flowers and the fragility of the woman, and this was really very impressive. The correspondence was supported by the choice of colours. Lovely painting.

Concluding remarks

I’m not able to anticipate if and how this exhibition visit may influence the sketches and studies or the final painting I’m going to make for assignment three. The paintings presented were quite varied in subject and united by the “Impressionism” label, interesting in their own right. I had no knockout effect with any particular painting or artist in this gallery, and I was reminded again of the difference between oils and watercolours as a painting medium. I think I’ll be able to sense the influence later on, once I’m under way and working on the assignment.

Resources

Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org

Gallery 769, American Impressionism: http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections?ft=*&gallerynos=769&rpp=40&pg=1

More artists: Paul Nash, John Piper, Eric Ravilious

Taking up another recommendation from my tutor to look at for part 3 of the course, I made a quick Google image search on Paul Nash, John Piper and Eric Ravilious. I was very perplexed by the similarity of the images that turned up. My first impression were that they were all depicting landscape in muddy green-grey-brown tones and created a depressed atmosphere, which could not be further away from my idea of “the joy of nature”. Having researched Eric Ravilious earlier for my drawing course, I remembered that he lived in the early 20^th century and was a contemporary of two world wars. I thought, maybe the choice of colours reflected how he felt about the world: An unfriendly place full of enemies. And maybe the other two painters made their works at around the same time?

Paul Nash, The Menin Road (1919)
John Piper, A Cotswold River Valley (1946)
Eric Ravilious, Beachy Head (1939)

And indeed. Paul Nash (1889 – 1946) was almost an exact contemporary of Eric Ravilious (1903 – 1942). John Piper was born at the same time, but lived into his late eighties (1903-1992). All three had been official war artists of British Ministries, and experienced both World Wars.

They painted landscape entirely different from the romantic ideal of healthy, protective nature, and this is very apparent in their choice of colour and elements they chose to depict.

Sources

Paul Nash, The Menin Road (1919): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nash,_Paul_-_The_Menin_Road_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

John Piper, A Cotswold River Valley (1946): http://www.lucy-johnson.com/available-pieces/d/a-cotswold-river-valley-the-coln-at-coln-st-aldwyns-1946/54251

Blog Article on Eric Ravilious, including the painting Beachy Head (1939): http://jamesrussellontheweb.blogspot.com/2011/09/eric-ravilious-at-belle-tout-lighthouse.html

More artists: Lucy Willis

I’m researching this artist following a tutor recommendation from Assignment 2 feedback. She pointed me to Lucy Willis’ interior paintings. My first impression when looking at the overview page of the interiors was they were very well made, much more worked out than my first attempts at interiors. I realized the potential of this theme and into what direction I might develop my own interior paintings.

I chose The Music Room, China (37 x 28 cm), The Kitchen Door (56 x 41 cm), The midday Hour (no size given) and the Striped Armchair (43 x 63.5) for a closer look. Looking at the larger web pictures reveals that they are much less detailed than the thumbnails appear to be, which I like even better. The larger and smaller shapes are clearly painted, and this is something I still have to learn. I think it has to do with decision making while painting. I think I am still very hesitant to just paint shapes and make a decision about its colour and value.

There are also nice colour contrasts, for example the orange and blue in the Kitchen Door painting, and this is another aspect I’d like to develop further in my own works.

I was quite impressed reading Lucy Willis’ biography. Born 1954, she was trained in fine art in Britain and then travelled a lot to paint. She also did projects and many commissioned works, and received several prizes. I found her prison project particularly interesting, where she gave drawing lessons to inmates over a period of one and a half year. As there was no formal enrolment, the group was constantly changing, but there seems to have been a lot going on psychologically for the men after they overcame their initial reluctance. I found this interesting because I thought about going into art therapy to combine art practice and teaching with my psychology background. Reading the article was a good reminder of what art is capable to do.

Looking over her other works, I particularly liked the landscape paintings, and chose River Lussa (38 x 56 cm) and The Drop Gate (28 x 37). They are the ones with the most intense contrast and values from very dark to very light, which I think is why I found them appealing.

After seeing so many works by Lucy Willis, I think that I like her paintings a lot and realize that I’m currently working in a similar, realistic style. But I have some reservations about the paintings I made recently and think that perfectioning the realist style is not my goal. I see it as a necessary stage while developing a more personal and abstract way of painting. I don’t know exactly what I’m aiming for, but it should be more generous and more exciting, less laborious with detail work.

Sources

Lucy Willis interior paintings: http://www.lucywillis.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=22&Itemid=47

More artists: Karen Armitage

After the pointer from my tutor in her feedback to Assignment 1, it is only now that I find the time to include a blog entry for my research on this artist. Karen Armitage is a contemporary British painter. Her works include not only watercolours, but also pastels and oil paintings. I’m including a selection of her works from an art prints site to illustrate my thoughts and findings. The quality of these web images is not very convincing. Better resolutions can be found at Bridgeman Education Library.

A dominant theme in Armitage’s works are flowers. I particularly liked the Magnolias, and also the Cyclamens. There’s an airiness in these watercolours that I find very interesting. Some areas are worked out, others are withered and pale. It reminds me of the photographic effect termed depth of field. With a short depth of field, only elements at one particular distance appear sharp in all details, while everything closer and everything further away is increasingly blurred.

What I liked less with these paintings was a tendency of overworking the watercolours to reach perfection. There’s not much to see of an original brushstroke or chance effects inherent to the medium. It is a very controlled approach. It has beautiful results, but they are almost too perfect and this takes away a lot of the liveliness that could be achieved in a painting of flowers.

Interestingly, the oil paintings appear much less overworked, as for example the Myosotis Bleu (2002). It may be a question of the medium. I have learned that watercolour quickly looses the charming immediacy when there’s too much layering and brushwork. Whereas oil paint seems to permit endless reworking without loosing it’s freshness, maybe even the opposite – reworking seems to add depth and lead to the essence of what is supposed to be depicted.

The pastels: I like that they are not detailed and how they include bright colours and strong contrasts, for example the Carpet Factory in Morocco (2000) or the Libary at Thorpeperrow.

I’m quite unsure about my own attempts with using pastels, but when I compare, I feel that I’m heading towards the right direction – overlays to create different colours and tones, but not closing up the paper under a thick layer of pigment, or smudging.

From the watercolours, I’d like to take away how nicely the compositions fill the picture space. The focus is on what the artist found essential, but this is nicely framed in a receding context. The Pansies in a Conservatory are included as a reminder.

Sources

Magnolia Box, an art print site, with quite a selection of Karen Armitage’s works: http://www.magnoliabox.com/artist/2864/Karen_Armitage

More artists: Elizabeth Blackadder

Elizabeth Blackadder was pointed out to me by my tutor in the feedback on Assignment 1. I did some research but then lost track of it due to the relocation to New York. Luckily I later found what I had prepared, so the blog entry comes just a little later than originally intended.

Born in 1931, Elizabeth Blackadder is a Scottish painter and printmaker. My search in Bridgeman Education Library returned many results, mostly watercolour works but also some other techniques, for example oil paintings and woodcuts.

Some of her earlier works looked very modern to me, for example the Still Life with Fish (watercolour, 77.5 x 56 cm, 1972), or the Flowers and Red Table (oil on canvas, 86 x 111 cm, 1969)

There are very delicate watercolour paintings of flowers, for example the Hellebores (1987-88). Sometimes they have extremely fine details, which is revealed when looking from very close (or in large magnification), as in Cat and Flowers (1981).

Like the Cat with Flowers, the Early Spring Anemone (1977) is a compositions that is somewhat lost in space, with its small objects before an essentially empty background. I found more paintings in this style and found them a bit disturbing. It’s as if the objects were too shy to occupy their space. The Camellias (1974) are different: Much more massive, and the objects fill the image space better. I’d have guessed this painting was made later than the Spring Anemones, but the dates indicate the opposite.

I also found a lovely woodcut with Lilies. I’m very interested in printmaking and have experimented a bit with linocuts and simple etchings. So I always like to look at artist’s printwork as well. Via a Google search, I found more prints by Elizabeth Blackadder, for example a lithograph, titled Roman Wall II, Walltown (1960) or the Abessynian Cat, an etching made 2003 at the Glasgow Print Studio.

I also found a really lovely watercolour of a Cat, titled Abessynian Cat Asleep (13.5 x 18.5 cm, 1985). The format is very small, but I double checked and it’s correct. The closeup picture shows the dark pencil underdrawing. I find this interesting because it certainly helped to build up the shapes, yet it does not disturb in the slightest the overall impression. It even adds another dimension which I like.

The link to Elizabeth Blackadders works which I was given for reference by my tutor points to a blog entry which presents an impressive variety in Elizabeth Blackadder’s works. One wouldn’t think that these were all made by the same artist.

The pointer to the Dragon Fruit watercolour was supposed to illustrate the intensity that is possible with watercolours. At the time, I tended to use watercolours in very pale washes, and looking at the painting, I realized that I was missing out much of the appeal of watercolour paintings. I remember that I was quite impressed seeing this painting. It had a good effect – I think that my application of colour has improved, and I’m beginning to get really intense tones and strong contrasts in my paintings. Still some way to go to achieve that kind of delicacy that I see in Blackadder’s (and other’s works), but I’m on my way!

Sources

Dragon Fruit watercolour: http://pinkpagodastudio.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/dame-elizabeth-blackadder.html

Roman Wall II, Walltown (1960): http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blackadder-roman-wall-ii-walltown-p06038

Abessynian Cat (etching, 2003): http://www.glasgowprintstudio.co.uk/Shop/DisplayPrint/4?requestType=eArtistPage

Abessynian Cat Asleep: http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20487/lot/65/

Using Photographs

I was hesitating to approach this project, because it is based on the difference between painting on the spot and painting from photographs. It’s winter and too cold to paint outside, and I felt that this might compromise the entire project. On the other hand, I didn’t want to defer the assignment until next spring.

One possibility I thought about how to overcome the problem would be to paint while inside, looking through a window onto a landscape. But I live in Manhattan, and looking out of the windows of my home I’m presented with townscape views. I’ve done several views out of the windows at home already, but I have developed such a longing for nature and trees that I can’t get myself to painting skyscrapers, apartment buildings and congested roads unless I absolutely have to.

I thought about painting in public spaces, but this doesn’t work for me. From earlier experiences I know that I’m really uncomfortable painting in public. And then, I simply don’t know about places that might work. I did some research on Google, but couldn’t locate anything.

So I thought it would be better to just do what was possible now and then later on, as weather permits, rework the exercises to get a feeling for the difference of the two approaches, photo vs on-the-spot. My idea was to travel to an outwards area of Long Island, called The Hamptons. It’s a preferred summer spot for many New Yorkers, and I thought that making a walk on the seaside in winter would be nice. Too cold for painting of course, but I could take pictures and then return in spring to paint on the spot. But it’s quite a trip to get there, like 3 hours of train or bus ride, and I would need a car to get around there because of the distances between places. Weather conditions are a factor too – I wouldn’t want rent a car and get into an ice blizzard or snow storm… so I wasn’t able to fit the excursion into my schedule as yet, but hope to do this in the near future.

In the meantime, I decided on something simpler to organize and went to Central Park to take pictures. It was a sunny day with an intensely blue sky and it had snowed. I wasn’t very satisfied with my pictures because I found them quite uninteresting as landscape views. But then again, painting from a picture can be an entirely different matter. So I decided to select two or three and give it a try for the first exercise.

Before I started, I made another mark making experimentation sheet with yellow, blue and green colour remnants. Before working focused again, I wanted to play around a bit along the lines suggested by my tutor: See what the colour does on its own, make marks and learn to watch them dry.

Exercise: Painting from a photograph

The task:
– Take 2 or 3 photographs of a landscape you can return to
– Print it out in the dimensions of your watercolour paper size (A3 or A4)
– Make a watercolourpainting of the landscape

Preparations

I made a printout in A3 of my selected photograph. Then I decided not to use the printed version, but work from the computer screen instead. This decision was based on earlier experiences with using pictures as a source. I have a digital camera and save all my pictures to the computer. I tried out different sizes as sources and in the end, none was as convenient as the picture on screen. When I need an image on a larger scale, I can use my TV as an additional monitor by attaching the computer. Some of the advantages are:
– The image on the screen is lighter
– The PC permits to seamlessly zoom in, if I want to take a closer look at a detail. It also permits to zoom out similarly easily. The resulting smaller image helps me to recognize the main compositional elements and distribution of lighter and darker tones
– My printouts are of mediocre quality. When I enlarge them to A3 or more, there are colour shifts at the seams where the paper must be cut and glued together.

I can use printouts once I want to get away from the computer, but overall I think that using the PC screen works better for me.

Approaching the motif

I chose a picture of a bridge in Central Park for this exercise. What I liked about it was the flurry impression of backlit leaves, and I found it was an interesting composition, combining organic irregular shapes of the trees in the foreground and the straight, planned constructed bridge. I also liked the atmoshphere of a sunny day in winter, with the New York skyline in the background of the trees.

I took a lot of time to look closely at my photo and consider the elements and details I would like to include in the painting. I also wanted to see whether there were aspects I’d like to analyse in preparatory studies. In particular, I had the idea of using coloured oil pastels to make small yellow and orange dots for the leaves, and overpaint this with a grey-brown wash for the middle ground of the painting.

The first technical study in a new sketchbook (23 x 30 cm) indicated that the idea might work, but the paper was too light and had no texture. I anticipated that the oil pastel marks would look different on textured watercolour paper and therefore made another quick study in my A4 watercolour sketchbook. It was intended to only try out the effect, but then I developed it into a rough sketch of the scene. The painting began to work when I laid a dark wash over the bridge to increase contrast.

I was curious to see the effect of a darker background tone and made an abstract study using violet/green and black/red mixed washes over yellow and orange oil pastel spots. I realized that the intended effect would become more intense, if I used contrasting colours and dark values, like the purple background for the yellow spots. On the same sheet, I tried out using a bamboo stick to paint branches of a tree, and the effect of a nail brush. But these did not really convince me.

The quick study of my chosen scene made me realize that the picture had interesting tonal effects, which I wanted to study closer. I discovered that the trees changed their tone towards the sky from lighter to darker. This resulted in interesting contrasts – the dark bridge behind lighter trees, the darker trees before a just somewhat lighter middle ground, and then the strong contrast of almost black branches before the very light sky. I made a pastel drawing on grey paper (49 x 34.5 cm) where I tried to analyse the tonal values and capture these different types of contrasts.

This was a very analytical drawing: I began by analysing the lighter and darker values in the picture and tried to translate them into a 5-value scale, from lightest to darkest. I located the paper tone as around value 2, quite light. Initially, I used my grey pastel set without much thinking, but then I discovered that it was divided into 4 warm greys and 4 cold greys. Based on this discovery, I began reworking the drawing, using the warmer greys for organic stuff (the trees and the hay stacks), and cold tones for the stone elements, like the bridge and the skyline. This seemed to nicely separate the elements. I then applied a dark brown layer in the middle ground to unify that area. This shifted the entire area closer towards the bridge and was exactly what I intended to have the skyline at a further distance.

Watercolour painting: A bridge in Central Park

I started the painting with a pencil underdrawing to indicate the bridge and the other main elements: The skyline, the three trees in the foreground, the shapes of the bushes and hay stacks. I used oil pastels for the yellow and orange leaves, and white for the snow highlights. I used masking fluid for the backlit spots through the bridge balustrade. I began with lightest colours and then worked through medium and dark tones. Most areas were reworked because I wasn’t satisfied with the colours and tonal values of the first layer of paint. But in the end, I was quite satisfied with the painting.

I worked for two days on this painting, around 8 hours in total. This may be a bit too long, but I needed time to make breaks and just look whether I was going towards the direction I wanted, and analyse how I might improve the overall impression. Compared to previous worked out paintings, for example the yellow school bus, or the Stairway in Carl Schurtz Park, or the Chairs in Tudor Park, I think this painting is going more towards watercolour style – there is more transparency and more of letting colours run into each other.

Technical difficulties were with the large format – I found it easier to mix the right amount of colour for the A4 sketch of the scene. This large format (50 x 40 cm) requires greater amounts of paint, and also larger brushes for areas in the same colour.

I realized that I’m beginning to experiment with texture effects, for example using the dry brush technique for the shaded snow areas. I also liked how I was beginning to use wet in wet for mixing colours, for example with the hay stacks.

Contrasting to what the course materials assumed, this was not the first time I’m using a photograph as source for a painting. Rather, I switched to using photographs because I wasn’t comfortable painting outside for various reasons. I’m trying to approach a photo source “seriously”, taking time to analyse what I see and making studies that I think might help me for the final painting. I feel like I’m getting along quite well with the process – I can take pictures of scenes that capature my interest, and then paint quietly at home – independent of weather conditions and undisturbed by the presence of other people in public spaces.

Guided reflections

How successful is this painting in terms of overall effects?

I think the painting is successful. I feel that I captured the main elements that I found important and also successfully used oil pastels for the desired effect of backlit leaves. The skyline in the background is very important, because it conveys an important aspect of “you can never escape the city” This is what I feel when I’m in Central Park. There are trees, but… you can never escape the city…

How successful is it in terms of composition?

I like the composition and think it is successful, too. I analysed the basic orienting lines of the scene when I started: the horizontal top of the bridge, the tilted skyline of buildings surrounding central park which leaves only a bit of sky in the upper are, and the curved lines of the bridge base and the terrain between me as observer and the bridge. These horizontals are contrasted to the strong verticals of the three foreground trees.

How well do the tonal relationships work?

Tonal relationships work quite nicely. The tonal study I made helped quite a bit in getting the tonal relationships right. The bridge is the central element of the painting, it is dominant through its dark colour. The middle ground is composed of the trees and the skyline and these are the mid tones of my painting. Within these midtones, I let the reddish brown for the trees mix into the blue-grey of the skyline and this has the effect of pulling the trees closer to the bridge and letting the skyline recede into the background.

Another important element was the strong contrast between the black branches and the almost white sky above the skyline. I deliberately increased the contrast to an almost black-and-white contrast in the sky area. Compared with the middle ground, the tonal values of branches before their background were very close together. I think these different types of contrast make the painting quite lively.

How true to the photograph are the colours?

I think the colours are quite true to the photograph

Does this look like a study made outdoors? If not, why not?

This is something I can’t tell. I wouldn’t assume it was made outdoors because it depicts a winter scene and it would have been too cold for a painter to work outside. From personal experience, I’d say I wouldn’t be able to paint something like this outside on the spot, because I wouldn’t feel comfortable enough in Central Park to complete a painting with so many details.

How much does this resemble the photograph?

The painting does resemble the photograph, since it takes up the composition and the colours, but it is less fine in the details. It is also less “neutral” – there’s something very personal to the way how I painted the trees and other details. I think the painting is more interesting than the photograph.

Does resemblance represent success or failure to you and why?

When I see photorealistic watercolour painting, I always have a strange feeling and while I admire the technical abilities of the painter, I tend to not want to do that kind of painting. So, exact resemblance is not my goal when I’m using a photograph. I rather see it as helping me to make an “accurate” painting with respect to the size of elements, receding lines in perspective, maybe even with tonal relationships and colours. I also see it as an opportunity to practice application of paint, washes, texture effects by trying to capture the essence of what is visible in the picture. I’d see it as a success when I’m able to find a simplification that suggests a particular detail, rather than painting that detail explicitly.

So it would be resemblance that’s based on abstraction which I’d consider success, while I’m not interested in resemblance that’s based on exact copying. In these terms, my painting is only moderately successful, because there’s not much abstraction and too much literal copying.

What problems did you encouter doing this picture?

A big problem was when I wanted to indicate the lightest parts of the painting, after I had made my outline sketch. I tried to follow the advice of beginning with lightest colours and work my way through the darkest tones. But highlights are most prominent where they are set off against dark tones. Highlights cannot be painted, but must be “left out”, surrounded by a darker tone. So there was a deadlock – if I followed the instructions to begin with lightest colours, I had no possibility of indicating my highlights and ran the risk of overpainting them.

But also with the next tones, the problem reappeared, because my second lightest tones were from the snow shades. I needed the defining elements of the bridge balustrade to know where to place them, while instructions provided no help how I would know where exactly to place these lighter areas. My pencil underdrawing was only a rough sketch. I had the desire to paint the broad elements of the painting – the mid-ground of trees and skyline, the bridge, the silhouette of the hills towards the observer – but if I had done this, I’d have overpainted the lightest areas.

As a result, I found myself fiddling with the bridge balustrade highlights at a very early stage of the painting, and this didn’t feel right. But I saw no other way of resolving the conflict. I painted the bridge in a relatively light tone to have an orientation where to place the highlights. Then I added my snow tops and backlit spots, and then I proceeded to the larger elements of the composition.

The problem is not new to me and I think it will need a lot more practice to develop a work process that accomodates how to integrate highlights without getting lost in tiny details at the very beginning of the painting.

What further information did you need to make a more successful picture?

I’m not sure what this question wants me to comment on. I don’t think that I was in need of more information, but probably more practice with watercolours would have resulted in a more fluent overall impression. The painting is a bit overworked due to layering in the middle ground, I think.

How did you know when your painting was finished?

I felt it was finished when I had eliminated those elements that I found disturbing to the overall impression. It was when I found the tonal relationships worked and I had all areas of the painting defined.

What were the limitations of this exercise?

There might be some limitations inherent in the use of a static source, rather than looking directly at a scene. This may have to do with the eyes providing the brain with two different images, one from the left eye and one from the right, to produce a three-dimensional image. When I’m looking at a photograph, I already have a two-dimensional representation, and this certainly makes a difference compared to painting from a real scene.

I have not much experience in painting on the spot, but I tend to prefer painting outside. It’s because of weather conditions and problems locating a space where I can paint comfortably, that I resigned to using photographs.

Did you notice any differences in your approach and technique in this exercise, compared to those working from direct observation?

The main difference I noticed was that when I’m working from a photograph, I can do this undisturbed at home, can take all the time I want, and there’s also a “fixed target” that will not change due to time of day. So I tend to find painting from a photograph a lot easier than painting on the spot.

Painting at home is also convenient because I have a variety of materials to choose from, which I wouldn’t carry around when painting outside. Overall, painting from a photograph poses less practical obstacles for me. Nevertheless, I hope that I will be able to find places around New York where I feel comfortable enough to paint, and I’d definitely like to make painting excursions with watercolours.

Exercise: Painting on the spot

The task:
– Return to the location at a similar time of day
– Paint one or two landscape studies on the spot
– Reflect on the painting experience while still outside

Very unexpectedly, New York experienced mild winter temperatures, plus the weekend was approaching. As a result, I was able to paint my chosen scene on the spot! I was happy about the opportunity to complete this exercise in Central Park.

I’m basing this blog section on my handwritten notes that I took while I was still on the spot. I returned to the location of my photo source in Central Park, but the lawn where I believed to have taken the original picture from was closed to rest for the winter season. I learned that the place was called Cedar Hill, and the name of my bridge was Glade Arch. I wandered around and then found a space which was moderately close to the original spot and also offered a bit of privacy from the public visiting Central park. I was also at almost the same time of day – around noon, with a backlight situation.

I was glad to have found a place for painting, but realized that the view had significantly changed. The snow had disappeared, which totally changed the overall light situation of the scene. My different viewpoint had different highlights in the scene. Despite these differences, I decided to take the chance of painting outside, since I had my equipment with me and did not want to have come in vain. I’m including the documentary photo of the new viewpoint, together with the painting that I have made on the spot.

Reflections on the experience of painting

It was really mild this afternoon, I even took off my jacket and sat there in a pullover. It may have been close to 20° (news reported 68° Fahrenheit, sort of a record high for New York in December, on the first day of winter). Nevertheless, I encountered a bunch of practical problems which made me feel quite uncomfortable painting outside.

The most trouble I had with my uncomfortable sitting position. I used a paper bag to kneel on the wet earth, and this quickly became damp and cold. My muscles began aching in this position, so I switched to sitting, but this made me bend my upper body and quickly became very uncomfortable, too. I wasn’t able to accommodate the situation, and the physical discomfort led to quick exhaustion. Lesson learned for me is that I need a little chair to sit on when I go painting outside.

It was also difficult to handle watercolour, water jar, brushes, paper towels while holding my paper block. Not impossible, but a small bench or something to arrange my props would have helped a lot. I wonder how others organize their stuff when painting outside, and I’ll do some research on the practical side of this. I definitely need some practical tipps.

I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t able to paint the view of my photo, but tried to adapt and get along with the new view. Unfortunately I had forgotten to take masking fluid and oil pastels with me, so I had nothing for preserving the highlights. In the new view, I would have needed to paint the trees differently, because they had one backlit contour and one dark contour. I might have worked this out using a darker background colour, but on the spot I wasn’t able to mentally slow down and properly analyse what I saw , then execute. I rather felt very pressured and in a hurry. On the one hand, this had the positive effect that I omitted all the details, on the other hand I think I missed out those interesting little things that might have been of interest for the overall effect.

Points about working outside

Did you feel that you are making progress in learning to focus and select?

While on the spot, I wrote that I saw only little progress. I found that maybe the ability to omit detail may have improved a bit. This was due to my feeling of being under pressure, with just very short time for painting. I don’t know why I constantly feel like this when outside, because there is no objective reason – I had the entire afternoon until the sun would disappear. So I suspect it had to do with the physical discomfort. Maybe I wanted to end the uncomfortable sitting position as soon as possible. I was also quite dissatisfied when I compared what I had painted on the spot with my memories of the painting I had made from the photo source.

Now back home, I realize that this outside painting may be weak compared to the painting from the photo, but actually it’s a huge improvement over the first paintings I made outside. That had been in Central Park as well, maybe 50 meters from the current setting, and looking towards a different direction, at a scene with some trees. At that time, I had the same stressed and hurried feeling, and was barely able to depict some coloured masses in a very rough way. Compared to those earlier paintings, I realize that my technical abilities with watercolour have improved: Now I was able to lay washes to indicate foreground, middle ground and background, there are some recognizable tree forms, the bridge is placed nicely, there is some blending of colours wet-in-wet but there are also some clear object contours.

So the main improvement seems to be the ability to focus on particular elements of the scene that I have in front of me. Having done the painting from the photo may have helped a lot, because I knew what I was interested in and also had some practice how to depict it.

First paintings in Central Park, September 2013 (Part 3, Project 1: Where to look and what to select, Ex. Sketches from different viewpoints at http://ocawatercolour1.patricia-karsten.de/?p=741 in this blog)

How would you describe your experience of this particular location?

While on the spot, I noted that I didn’t feel comfortable at the location. Partly this was due to physical discomfort, but it also had to do with my longing for “real nature”, rather than having to resign to a cultivated park for drawing a landscape. I noted that I felt like in a hurry, as if eager to quit the place as soon as possible and get back home.

I had thought about doing the preparatory exercises for Assignment 3 in Central Park and had even taken the sketchbook and some drawing materials with me. But I decided that I wanted to try a different location for Assignment 3, even if this meant that I must find a solution how to paint on the spot when winter temperatures are coming back.

With hindsight, I realize that my main problem with the location had to do with physical discomfort, which I might alleviate by buying a lightweight camping stool and taking this with me. But then again, it’s true that I’m longing to get out and see landscape that is more natural and less crowded by afternoon passers by. If the mild and sunny weather persists, I might take the train for a trip to some nice place. I’ll decide tomorrow.

How did you cope with changes taking place in the landscape while you were in it?

I was painting rather quickly, so there weren’t too many changes taking place. There was some wind blowing away autumn leaves, but I hadn’t included them in the painting anyway. Sometimes the sun was intense with much backlight contours on the trees, at other times the sun was hidden behind some lighter clouds, making the light contours disappear. But I wasn’t able to work out the trees to include this visual information, probably due to the overall very pressurized feeling I had on the spot.

Have you experienced any limitations in what you were able to achieve owing to time constraints?

There were lots of limitations compared to the situation of painting at home. In particular, I didn’t have all the materials at hand to which I can resign at home. Having forgotten to take masking fluid and oil pastels with me, I didn’t have the tools to including some highlights. I might have done it using the background colour, but wasn’t able to slow down and work this out. I just wasn’t relaxed and comfortable and did not particularly enjoy painting outside, and this posed a serious limitation on what I was able to do on the spot. But I think this was not due to the objective time constraint of vanishing sunlight, it was rather a mental thing of not being able to relax and really concentrate on the task at hand.

Did you have the picture from the previous exercise as some kind of model in your mind’s eye?

Yes, this effect was very present. I was able to adapt and accommodate the new viewpoint on the bridge, but I was definitely focusing on those elements that I found crucial in my analysis of the photo source painting. I focused on the skyline of the buildings, on the silhouettes of some dominant trees and how there was a shift in contrast from middle ground towards the sky. I also repeated the mixing of colours for the green and yellow bushes. The backlight effect of the bridge’s balustrade was now different, without snow and from my changed viewpoint. I adapted and simplified this element. Overall I’d say that painting from the photo had a very good preparatory effect for painting on the spot.

Assessment of the two exercises: Painting from a photo vs painting on the spot

What have you learned about the strenghts and limitations imposed by these two approaches?

There was one thing I really liked about painting on the spot. This had to do with the greater freedom with the composition made directly from the scene in front of me. Drawing the main lines of the composition with pencil felt very organic and less constricted by a fixed preselected photographic view. I was free to move a little to the left or right to adjust. I also liked that I was able to walk around and inspect the bridge from all sides, which helped me to understand the structure of the landscape. I did this after painting when I was on my way home, so the effect is not present in this painting, but it is something I’ll keep in mind for future excursions.

The main drawback of painting outside is for me the practical issues of having to carry my materials around and anticipate everything, from supporting props to something to sit on, or maybe something to protect against rain, wet ground, insects, and so on. I also tend to feel uncomfortable in public spaces with people around me.
By contrast, painting at home in my studio gives me all the time I want to take for preparatory studies, trying out effects, looking closely at some detail. It is very convenient, because I have a lot less practical issues to worry about. The photo source is static and I can take 4 hours to paint the one fleeting moment of glaring sunlight on some leaves.

But then, this may be exactly the dangerous point in painting from a photo source: The opportunity of including details that are fleeting and would escape my attention if I was painting the same scene on the spot. On the other hand, if someone is decided to focus on detail, he’d do this whether outside or in front of a photo at home, so maybe it is rather a matter of conscious decision regarding the desired amount of detail and painting style.

I tend to be rushed when I paint, and being at home with a photo source permits me to slow down and really study. I think this is good because it enables me to observe closely. When I’m outside, I just can’t do this, at least not at this point of my learning process. It is an aspect I will have to work on, because generally, I prefer working from direct observation and think it is important for my development in painting.

Which of the exercises has been more valuable to you?

Actually the painting on the spot exercise has been more valuable, because it presented a challenge that I had decided to avoid for many reasons. I had been struggling with weather conditions – in summer it was incredibly hot, and in winter too cold for painting outside – and also with the social issue of exposing myself with all my painting stuff to the public in Central Park.

I think that I will come to really like painting outside if I manage to organize it in a way that relieves the practical issues. I need a lightweight chair and a drawing board, and something to put my colours and water jars on. Something to shield the eyes from sunlight, and maybe a hat in hot weather. I also need a location that is more natural, and preferably outside the big city. Maybe then I’ll be able to develop a feeling of privacy and comfort when painting outside, and this will make a huge difference.

Which of the paintings has been the most successful and why?

From the two exercises, I think the painting from the photo source was more successful than the painting made on the spot. The painting from the photo is much more worked out, it includes those details I found interesting in the setting. It has a full range of tonal values from very light to very dark, and there are different types of contrasts and also a variety of textures.

Compared to this, the painting on the spot was executed in a hurry and contained only the bare minimum of the elements I had found important. There are no light effects, and everything is much less pronounced.

One problem was that the scene had changed, compared to the original photo – a different viewpoint, no snow, and different backlight effects which I wasn’t able to capture on the spot. But the central difference was that at home, I took the time to analyse what I see. I made some studies to try out techniques. I also had the time and patience to rework areas that weren’t very successful in the first go.

But despite the shortcomings of the painting made on the spot, I am aware that it represents a big step forward compared to my earlier attempts to paint a scene in Central Park. So overall I’m very glad I took the opportunity of the mild weather for this experience. There’s a bit of hope that if I get myself organized and find a suitable location, I’ll find real pleasure in painting outside.

From the experience of doing two approaches with roughly the same scene, I’d say that taking photos will be very valuable to make preparatory studies at home. These permit to try out techniques and also help to find out what I find particularly attractive in a landscape. I think without having made the painting from the photo beforehand, the painting on the spot would have been much weaker.

Ooops…

Several hours later at home, after I had completed the blog entry, I realized that my original photo source had not been taken as a view from Cedar Hill. Instead, it must have been taken from the lawn on the opposite side. I don’t know why I did not realize this when I was there. Maybe it was because Cedar Hill had become sort of a favourite location to sit and relax when I was in Central Park, and then my mind was busy digesting that the lawn was closed and finding an alternative spot to paint. I think I took the original picture on the previous excursion after I had left Cedar Hill, making a little deviation on my way back home because I had been attracted by the nice view.

Looking at my first painting, it is so obvious that the picture was taken from the left hill, and not from Cedar Hill which to the right side of the bridge. So strange that I didn’t notice this on the spot. But anyway, the original viewpoint would have been much too exposed for me to sit and paint amidst the many passers by. I think this error doesn’t devalue the experiences I made and the learning that took place, because the most important changes were changed light situation due to the disappearance of snow and painting from a real scene instead of painting from a static source.

Approaching Assignment 3

The following exercises are directly preparing assignment three. My main difficulty was with the time of year, because it is really too cold to make sketches or watercolour studies outside. I therefore decided to base my work on photographs, not on sketches made on the spot.

I had originally planned to make an excursion to Long Island, The Hamptons, to prepare the assignment, but then postponed the idea because of difficult and unstable weather conditions. It is quite a trip to go there, like 2 – 3 hours by bus or train, and I’d have to rent a car because distances are large and public transportation unavailable. I thought it was too ambitious to squeeze such a journey into a short winter day, and I wouldn’t even be able to make studies outside because it was freezing cold.

After some searching, I decided on a visit to The Cloisters instead. This is a relatively new building in the style of a medieval castle, which hosts a collection of medieval art of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It is located in Washington Heights at the northern end of Manhattan, in a park which offers nice views onto the Hudson river. This was what attracted me to go there. I walked from the subway station through the park up to the Cloisters, and made several photos on my way.

Now the problem with these photos is that it was a grey day. All my pictures are pale in their colours, and they depict dried, wintery plants and trees without leaves. The overall mood is that of a cold winter’s day without sun – and somehow the whole collection of pictures is not very inspiring. Upon first look through the pictures, there were several with interesting views or details, but none fit into my idea of “beautiful landscape”. Any line study would be dominated by bare tree shapes, truthful colour studies in muddy pale greys and browns with some occasional dull green spots. Duh…

I found this so uninspiring that I decided to look whether I could find photographs on the web with landscapes I’d love to paint… my keywords were “tuscany travel pictures” in their German translation (“Toskana Reisebilder”), and I landed on the website of the photo community of the German GEO travel magazine. Around 150 pages of travel pictures from this area. I looked through around 25 pages and selected around 10 for closer consideration. My favouriste was a portrait format with two sheep in a foreground and the tuscan hill landscape developing into the horizon, with yellow-green colours up to the horizon. But there was also a picture of a tuscan stone house surrounded by trees, bushes, flowers and a hill landscape. Or another with a poppy field and a lane of cypress trees.

I saw different avenues I might take for the assignment:
– Look harder at my authentic photographs and try to bring out in painting what had captured my interest in the first place. The task would be to remain truthful to winter shapes and colours and try to bring out their particular beauty
– alternatively, use my authentic photographs as a point of departure for some invention on colours and shapes, changing the original scene into a direction I’d find visually more attractive. For example, intensifying colour hues and contrasts, leaving out some things and emphasizing others.
– or thirdly, use the Tuscany photographs from the web and let myself be guided buy their beauty, trying to capture the colours and landscapes truthfully to those photographs. (I checked out copyrights of the site and there was no clause prohibiting private use of materials submitted to the site.)

I found advantages and disadvantages in each of the approaches. Using the Tuscany photographs might be beneficial because this would permit going beyond my own photographic and geographic limits. It would permit depicting scenes out of my current reach, and in a completely different palette of what I have currently available when painting from nature or recent pictures taken by myself. On the other hand, there is only one single picture of each scene available, meaning that I have no context and no other resources related to that particular setting.

By contrast, using my own pictures delivers lots of context for the location. I can easily return there, for example in spring time, and add some more pictures, or try painting on the spot. Being truthful to what I have captured on the photographs places the emphasis on bringing out the aspect that captured my attention. It also involves an analysis of winter colours. Or if I depart by exaggerating and changing my photo source, the emphasis would be on developing visual phantasy about the place, a different but also quite interesting task.

I opted for a coffee break and then wanted to come to a decision. Two things were important for me: A feeling of challenge and being personally involved, and secondly it should fit into the aims of the assignment. I couldn’t do anything about the problem that I won’t be painting on the spot, but I could try to choose the approach that works with other central requirements of the assignment.

Exercise: Preparatory sketches

I finally decided on the option that I found most difficult: Use the photos I took and remain truthful to them, and try to bring out what I had found interesting about the view when I was on the spot. I chose four different views of the Cloister building and made quick compositional sketches in my sketchbook (23 x 30 cm) using 4B graphite sticks. I focused on getting the essential elements and shapes in their placement right. I also paid attention to my own responses while drawing, to sense how interesting I found the scene as a source for a larger painting.

I found compositions 3 and 4 more interesting, but the photos less so to work from because of either not enough or too much visual information about the building. I preferred views 1 and 2 which showed The Cloisters from the adjacent hill. In particular, I liked view 2 because the portrait format included more of the road and the trees in the foreground, which resulted in some more variety in colours and adding depth to the entire scene. It may not be apparent from my sketches, because somehow view 2 looks like the weakest of the four compositions, but I thought it was the most interesting and fruitful for further study, and I wanted to continue with that one.
Line study and watercolour study

Task instructions suggested to make a line study to establish the main lines and shapes, and then make a watercolour study for particularly characteristical colours and their lightest and darkest values. Well I tried, but I think the scene I chose was not particularly friendly to these kinds of study. There were very few clearly defined shapes – the building maybe, but the scene is dominated by only vaguely defined elements and constantly interrupted lines and shapes. Difficult to identify anything particular. I tried to capture some of the main elements, but found this very hard to do.

Then the colour study. I think it is successful in capturing the colours that were actually present – pale, cold, wintery colours. I used masking fluid for the lights on the branchwork and this was maybe a bit too much. In the final study, I’d have to tone this down to get the right amount of light in the dominating grey-brown area of bushes and trees.

Exercise: Photographs for source material

I took quite a few photographs when I was on the spot, but the assignment due date is approaching. Due to working full time, I must make a decision how to use the few leisure time I have. Making more visits at different times of day and different weather conditions means I use up the time I had reserved for painting, and further delaying assignment submission.

I decided to proceed without making more visits to The Cloisters, and try how I’d get along with the photographs I had taken.

Collect objects as visual clues

Unfortunately I had forgotten to collect objects when I was there. I must admit that this kind of activity is new and did not feel natural, and I wasn’t able to connect to the idea of using objects to prepare for a painting. Then faced with the same dilemma of making another visit and using up the time I had reserved for painting, I decided to proceed and see where I would get without visual objects.