more ocean waves

pastel on somerset paper

When I am stuck on a painting, there is something very soothing about doing a value study.  My best friend Leah sent me photos of her Nova Scotia beaches. This is Clam Harbour. I really want to get to the beach now. But instead I will return to the struggle of painting.

value study of waves and seascapes of Tryon's

7x10 pastel on paper

A couple of years ago there was a memorable exhibit of Dwight William Tryon's seascapes at the Freer Gallery of Art. Freer was Tryon's biggest collector so lucky for me the museum owns many of his gorgeous works. This show featured his seascapes. Beautiful thick pastels created by building the pastels in many many layers, just like his  very thick oil paintings of fields. I remember distinctly  that he had painted them from memory.  While in Ogunquit Maine  (yes Maine, Sam) Tyron had fished and would later return to his studio to create these beauties. (below)
I really love the few trips a year I spend at the sea. It is most soothing to hear the repetition of the crashing waves. During the last 2 months I often looked at  the many seascapes in his book, An Ideal County. So I decided to go out on a limb and do a value study of waves in the ocean. I used an old photo as a beginning reference as I had no idea of how waves really work. To complicate it further I made a composition with three slightly unequal bands. The goal was to play with these bands and their edges to see if I could pull it off. What do you think...did I pull it off?

Tryon, moonlit sea, pastel on cardboard

Tryon, a misty morning, pastel on cardboard

value, mood and tips

Here is another value study. It is of my favorite slough in Washington state so I  used a plein air piece as reference. No photos...it's all in the plein air piece, my memory and my built up reference folder in my head.
The colors in the plein air painting really do show the time of day I hope to create a real mood to this painting. I can feel it. The value scale will be darker and close....small lights will peek through. Somber, bittersweet with hope.

 I was asked in an email for tips about creating value paintings.
Here are a few:
Squint (but that's always, right)
I like to use the subtractive method. On soft paper (somerset is my paper of choice) use pastel to make big shapes. With a rage and fingers I  smooodge it and then with a kneaded eraser and a harder eraser I subtract lightly...make a small mistake add more pastel. It's very forgiving.  Enjoy!

Design, color and the painting/Pierre Bonnard

6x18 pastel on somerset

This is just a study in shapes/masses.  It is done completely from memory, not photos, no plein air pieces.
Reducing the landscape to just value makes you think only in terms of shape and design. What does it take to make a pleasing design of positive and negative shapes? One of my favorite ways to find out is to play with one pastel and two erasers.  With these I work back and forth:I make shapes, then I gradually carve out my shapes. I repeat the process till satisfied.
Long ago,  Pierre Bonnard was my absolute favorite painter. He is the ultimate colorist. I was fortunate in that the Phillips Gallery in DC has an abundance of his beautiful giant, color filled paintings. I would go see them each week. These important words from the master have stayed in my mind, "Color does not add a pleasant quality to design – it reinforces it." Below are two paintings by Bonnard in the Phillips Gallery.  
Bonnard's words are the same as Richard McKinley's words, "Value does the work color gets the glory." So why do we so often by pass making notans and sketches? My lesson today, slow down and enjoy the process.

more work with "removed grisailles"

about 11x11 pastel on somerset
I decided to continue the challenge. With value only I tried to create the feeling of the sun sinking below the horizon. To do this I focused on keeping the land masses dark, trying only to give light to the few places the sun's last light would touch. Making clouds with value only was the trickiest part! This will help me with the painting I began last week. My soccer field.

I wanted to share with you that my painting, Sunshine on my Shoulder, took 3rd place in the Maryland Pastel Society's show. I just found out about this happy moment!

the essence, the painting on a diet

I am rethinking just how much needs to be painted...so I return to value. My study of Chinese landscape painting has made me focus on negative space. A Chinese landscape painter uses shades of value and negative space to create a mood. Say less and the viewer completes the painting/drawing. Now where have we heard that before?

Dwight William Tryon, mystery and memory

10x10 pastel on gray BFK

I was down at the Freer Gallery of Art the other day, there to get my hit of Whistler, and I was led astray. It was  Dwight William Tryon who captured my heart and made me go NUTS! These small images can't possibly do justice to what was there. Tryon is often considered a Tonalist, although his palette is much lighter in value.. He painted with close values, thick paint and very soft edges. He believed in "less is more" and mystery.
Later I read that he marked these words to remind himself as he worked in his studio:
“The value of memory sketches lies in the fact that so much is forgotten! In time we must learn to leave out in our finished pictures these things which we now leave out through ignorance or forgetfulness. We must learn what to sacrifice.”
Ah ha! That says it all doesn't it?
Perfect!

I have posted a recent value study. To keep the values closer I chose gray paper. My goal was to play with edge and shape. It was inspired by sketches done last summer at one of my favorite fields on Whidbey Island.

river at big bend/ value painting and grisaille

9x12 value painting/pastel on BFK

One of my favorite sections of the river is at big bend.  It's a place where I have done  many plein air paintings right here. Using those ideas I created an value painting in preparation for another bigger oil. It's important to create the mood with value alone. "Value does the work, color gets the glory." (Richard McKinley)

 18x24 oil on linen

Then on to the grisaille.
Shapes are important when planning a painting.  Only a few large shapes make a stronger painting. After making your shapes you need to carefully think about shadows and edges. How many edges do you want? (another case for less is more) For a more interesting painting don't contain your shadows let them drift and float.
This is the grisaille for the larger painting. I have been working on just this for 2 days, wiping, scratching, putting on more paint, and rubbing.More about this painting and its genesis later.
I posted two today...this is tomorrow's post..... I have so many things due for my upcoming show in May that I figured since I was on a roll........

going from small to big

Going from small to big takes a lot of planning, for me. The concept has been growing in my head for awhile now and it's the right time of year. At this time the "blue twilight" is present. I love those moments before the sun goes over the horizon. The day is full of unseen possibility and wonder. In this painting blue will be the underlying color as the fog waits for day.
I begin with notans, tiny sketches that help me understand the compositional possibilities.  Insights about how the masses and values will relate on an abstract level are beginning.
The next step is a value painting. It needs to make me feel, even before color is there.

 

For me it, picking the value painting was a "no-brainer." the top one just flowed. The middle painting was a struggle and its idea may need to be saved for another painting and refined. At the bottom you can see the notans. 

waiting at the light 1 and 2

10x10 pastel on BFK
So there I was in a line waiting at the light. There was a fog that made an orange- pink cottony glow. The sun was just beginning to come up between the trees.  I was one my way into school. I teach 2 classes this morning. No time to stop and paint. I whip the camera from my glove compartment (it's always with me) and fling my hand out the window and snip the picture just as the light turns green.
I did the value painting at night. Now I am ready to go onto color.