I know, I know, it’s been a dog’s age since I last posted, and it’s high time I did!
One of the reasons why it’s been so long since I last posted anything is because, well… I haven’t actually produced any artwork for a long, long time. And the reason why my creative output dried up is because my work life (and mental health) took a massive beating over the last two years. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say that the conflict of interest between my day job (animation) and my hobby (art) became unsustainable during these last few years of industry upheaval, and at the end of the day, bills had to be paid and sacrifices had to be made.
The one bright spot from my most recent contract is that the studio hosted free Life Drawing sessions for the employees, and I did my best to take advantage of it. They were mostly geared towards the Speed Demons amongst us (absolute masses of 30-second, one-minute, and 2-minute poses!) but if nothing else, they forced me to lay down the basic proportions faster and clearer. I can definitely see an improvement over time!
Being furloughed, I have more “quiet time” than is strictly necessary, but at least it gives me a chance to get some painting done! On the easel this time, yet another dreamy landscape (and yes, it’s Lac des Sables up at Mont Tremblant National Park, again – I got a whole theme going, and am thinking of asking for contracts with the Laurentians Tourism bureau at this point). 😉
I started with a brilliant pink background because I thought that any pink showing through would look nice and fit the mood of the painting. Also, I just needed cheering up!
I was about 3/4 of the way through before I realized that the line of trees at the edge of the water could afford to be paled down in order to enhance the sense of space. I also felt that the general colour of the water needed some tweaking. After that, there was no more avoiding the ripples in the foreground – a favourite, as always (she said, gritting her teeth)!
The line of trees is too dark and it shortens the space. Still to do: the ripples!
It might interest you to know that there was an earlier version of this same painting, but I had started it with an orange background instead.
My husband liked the painting in its early stages so much that he convinced me to leave it as is. This rough, half-painted version now has a permanent home in his office!
So… do we like this version better? Is this how I should be painting ALL of my landscapes from this point onwards?
Such a simple image: lots of blue, lots of black, and a tiny spattering of gold. This SHOULD have been one of my easiest paintings to paint, right?
WRONG. Maybe it was the tricky combination of Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, and Mars Black that added unexpected drying time to my treasured water-miscible oil paint… maybe it was the choice of substrate that guaranteed my frustration (canvas – too rough, even with a few extra coats of gesso; YUPO paper, so smooth that the paint lifted right off; and finally Canson Oil & Acrylic paper, too buckle-y)… but most likely, it was the fact that, as usual, I mixed and applied too little paint at a time, and that meant that I had to work and re-work certain areas over and over again. There needs to be a support group for cheapskate painters like myself (“Hi, my name is Emma, and I consistently mix too little paint and then I have the gall to wonder why my brush isn’t gliding smoothly across the surface, and the whole process takes much, MUCH longer than it should. Will I never learn??”).
Anyways, after all that heartache, I am pleased with the final result! I’ll have to make some repairs to the right side of the painting to make up for what the tape lifted off accidentally, but otherwise, this might be one of my favourites. I just never want to see it again! 😉
My own little “Salon des Refusés“! From left to right: acrylic on Canson paper, oil on canvas, acrylic on YUPO paper
I’m still deep in my “mental vacation” and enjoying painting these summer landscapes!
I’m endlessly fascinated by sunlight and shadows on hillsides. Not only do I love it when the skies are partially cloudy, thus creating clear and obvious areas of light and shadow on the ground, but I love it even more when the terrain is hilly and you get to imagine what is just beyond those hills. Makes me want to throw on a backpack and start trekking!
Original reference photo
Unlike the previous landscape paintings, I did not opt for a brightly coloured ground this time around. My intention was for the acrylics to be their best acrylic selves and show off some bold colour, and I felt that fighting against a vivid ground would be overkill. Instead, I started with a light wash of Raw Sienna, and blocked in a few of the darkest areas of the painting.
The next step was painting in the blue of the sky all in one go. With any luck, I wouldn’t have to try to spot-paint any missing or botched areas along the way (because you can NEVER match the colour in a fade perfectly, no matter how hard you try). The clouds and water were then quickly blocked in.
As usual, beyond that, I got lost in endless noodling of the hillsides. I had hoped to keep the trees of the foreground hill fairly loose and undefined, but compared to the finesse of the farthest hill, the foreground hill looked out of place. In the end, I realized that it was best to paint in some individual trees (more or less), and I’m glad I did because that’s what really made that hill jump forward!
Other sneaky Photoshop trick: I was debating for a while if I should make the farthest hill paler. To find out, I uploaded an in-progress image of the painting into Photoshop and used the Magnetic Lasso tool to select only the farthest hill, and then adjusted the Brightness on it. As you can see, that little preview convinced me that paler was better!
With all my paintings of lakes in recent days, I’m feeling a little waterlogged, so I thought I’d expand my painting horizons and try to paint a forest scene (“branching out” as it were). As a reference, I used one of my photos of the path that links Lac Monroe to the Chutes du Diable up at Mont Tremblant National Park
Far from being a “walk in the park” (sorry – had to!), this painting went through a LOT of reconstructive surgery. Stepping back to take in my finished piece, it became obvious to me that I had hewn too closely to my photo reference. The end result was a painting with values that worked against me, making the trees off in the distance appear to be on the same level as the trees that were in the foreground.
To test this theory, I brought my painting into Photoshop and used Image > Adjustments to switch it to Black & White. The results are below:
1st version of the paintingSame painting converted to black and white
Notice how the space feels very shallow, with an awkward push and pull between the foreground and background elements? Clearly, this needed a serious overhaul!
The first thing I did was tinker with the black and white version of my painting until the values held together in a way that made sense and created a feelinge of depth.
Old values = shallow picture planeNew values = now we’re going somewhere!
The next step was to adjust the coloured version of the painting in Photoshop so that when converted to black and white, the colours translated to the new values (or at least, resembled them as close as possible).
1st version of the paintingSame painting but with adjusted colours in Photoshop
Once I know what I was aiming for, I repainted the areas that needed repainting. Sometimes, I could get away with a light glaze, but other times, a complete repainting of certain areas was required.
Not gonna lie – this exercise in tinkering with values took much longer and was far more difficult than I had imagined it would be. I took countless progress photos and brought them into Photoshop so that I could compare the values, and not matter what, I always seemed to be slightly off the mark. Worse yet, the original brush marks in the first version of the painting disappeared the more adjustments I made, and I found myself missing that original, imperfect painting.
1st version……. to Photoshop adjustments…… to Final version!
In fact, I’m not completed convinced that this painting is well and truly done as I’m sure that certain areas could use some improvement (in other words, I’m not “out of the woods yet!” – okay, that’s the last pun, I promise!!). But for now, I’m happy to move on to other things!
EMMA PITTSON 