This demo is my attempt to share with you the process that I go through when I am considering creating a large painting from photo reference that I am not familiar enough with, so that when I do begin work on the large painting, I have more information and have answered some questions, so that I don’t get into trouble right away. Do I always do this? No. But when I have questions and uncertainty, I do. In this case, as you can see in the attached reference photos, I am choosing a pretty small portion of the main photo. So small that a lot of the detail is lost, and the portion that I want to paint is soft, i.e., not very well in focus. The only way that I can possibly use the cropped portion in a large painting, one that is 36”x36” or larger, is to make at least one study to learn more about the subject, and to work out some of the “unknowns”. When you scale up a painting, whether from a field study or a reference photo, it’s the “unknowns” that may give you trouble, and make a successful painting more difficult to realize.
Below is my reference photo for this study. I have used a grid, applied in the editing program, to help me place the major horizontals and verticals. As you can see, it’s gridded in 1/3’s, my main vertical on the left side 1/3, the main horizontal on the lower 1/3. This way the distribution of the main masses in the composition is 2/3 sky and 1/3 land, a nice balance. The area that I want to emphasize is the area in the middle distance where the sunlight has hit the sand and grasses, creating a sliver of very warm color against all of the gray of the rest of the composition. I’ve arranged it so that it’s just off center, slightly lower than center, slightly to the left of center. The climax of that contrasting area is right where the middle ground warm colors smack into the cooler darks, and up against the vertical of the palm tree trunk. The sharpest edges, most value contrast, most temperature contrast, and the largest difference in hue of the two areas. That’s a good formula for grabbing the viewers attention and directing them to exactly where you want their eyes to go.
The photo below is showing the portion of the photo I’m using compared to the over all reference. As you can see, at first glance the entire photo is a nice idea all by itself, but a little boring as is. When I looked at it I felt there were so many stories in it that I needed to look deeper and choose a part of it that was more dramatic than the overall photo is.
I hope that you enjoy this demo. Sorry it took until later in the weekend for me to get it edited and through the process of the 3 uploading stages. I had intended to upload and send just a half hour block-in on Friday. On Friday morning I decided to go ahead and finish the painting and video so that I could upload and send it to you in it’s entirety. The full demo is about 1 hour, 20 minutes.
My book recommendation for this newsletter is a book that I bought as soon as it was published in 1987, ‘The Illuminated Landscape: Paintings of Peter Poskas’. The title to the left is linked to one of several places that it can be purchased. What I really appreciate about Peter’s work is that, like the Wyeth’s, he intensely studies his neighborhood and paints it in all of it’s glory and with all of it’s faults. His paintings offer a preservation in time of the community and history of those who’ve inhabited the area through history, and who continue to live on the land today. He’s a brilliant painter as well.
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Keep your brushes wet!
Cheers,
Marc
12x12 Study in oil for a large studio painting.