Plein Air Painting Tips

 

"Spearfish Creek"   5" x 7" watercolor
Available for $75, matted to 8" x 10".

Lately, I've had many students asking for design help with their paintings.  Especially when I Plein Air paint, the first thing that I do is to find the lights in the scene and then find a way to connect them.  I knew in the above painting that my center of interest was the strong light hitting the lime green tree mass.  I started there with my light pathway.  Then I exaggerated the lights hitting the water, so that those lights would lead up to the trees.  The sky is the other light value. I shortened the background trees so that I could have a light sky showing.   This week, I plan to do many different versions of the below photo and see if I can make the light pathway even more interesting.  I'd love it if you would join me. Just make sure that your lights connect.  Notice the black and white that checks up on my values of my painting.  

Black and white to show my values.                                                       Original photo

Good Design is the blueprint for success!

Lately, I've had lots of emails and requests from students needing help with good design. They say that they have a good handle on texture and color, but they don't know how to finish their paintings.  I believe that good design has to be established BEFORE starting a painting.  It's like the foundation of a house.  A strong structure to support the house. 

Here's a great Design Exercise that will help you get started:  Using mat corners, crop into a photograph to about 2" x 2", until you like the abstract shapes.  (You can also cut out L shaped papers and use them for the mat corners.). The thing that you look for is high contrast and big simple shapes, in looking for the cropped room photo.  Below is the line drawing I did based on the cropped photo.   I like either the lights or darks to connect.  Turn your sketch all 4 ways to make sure that it is balanced.  Do a value study, using only a mid tone and the white of the paper.  This will force you to simplify the study.  I add the darkest darks within the shaded mid tone later on. 

                 

I like to use a continuous line that is the shapes of the dark shapes in this photo.  Now that you have the line drawing, try coloring in the center section as pictured below on the left.  OR.... you could shade in the corners, leaving a light shape that connects the viewer to all 4 sides. (See on the lower right.)   Notice that this practice gives you limited shapes. I count 6 in all!  You will know that you have a good design if all the corners are different sizes and there is good repetition and variation.  I hope this clears up some of the design questions.  I find it so different that the left and the right ones are from the same drawing shown above.

Tricks to break through a painter's block

Wire drawing (7" x 10"). "The Hikers"

This is the sketch that I used for a reference for a pure watercolor painting.   I hadn't done a pure watercolor for a year, so it didn't surprise me when I failed at the first attempt.  I'm starting to really love acrylics, but the deadline for the Transparent Watercolor Society show is coming up, and since I'm a lifetime member, it doesn't cost me anything to try to be juried in each year.  I do have my signature membership, but it's still such a great challenge to try to get in!  So, here I am, trying to remember how I used to get such glowing colors.  Here's what I did to get out of my slump.

1. Go back to what you know.  Do whatever you used to do that was so easy and foolproof.  For me, it is little abbeys.  You can look back at earlier blogs to see them.  Just put a search in for Little Abbeys. I love them because they remind me of the way that I should be painting all of my paintings.  Starting at your center of interest with bright colors, working towards the edges.  Saving your whites for sparkle.  Weaving a unifying color from the center of interest towards the edges.  Lastly, staging your center of interest with a darkest dark and then changing to a less dark color as you approach the edges.  Keep the edges simple and keep the whitest white near the center of interest.  Those are my rules for Little Abbeys (small abstract collages). (Look back to June 13, 2015 for directions for little abbeys.)
2. Use limited colors
3. Use limited shapes
4. Think cool or warm as the dominant washes and then add pops of the opposite color later within the light pathway.
5. Trust your value sketch and keep the light pathway connected.

I'm not going to post my failure, but below are my 2 small paintings that I did AFTER I went through the above rules. Now, I think I'm ready to do the big quarter sheet painting next.  These 2 paintings are 7" x 10".

Too many small shapes, but interesting colors

Good design but I miss the bright colors.