Let's have a quick look at how the brain works…

I am not a doctor or a brain specialist, but I will try to describe the brain's functions in terms hopefully most of you will understand.

Caveman (Cave Person)

The brain functions on a primal neanderthal level. Always has, always will. It's in our DNA. It’s primary function is to keep us alive with the simple equation of "eat or be eaten". The brain only needs two pieces of information to solve this dilemma . What and Where.

1. What am I looking at?
2. Where is it in space?

What is that object? Is it food I can eat? Am I the food? Will I be eaten? Is it coming toward me and if it is then I'm probably the food! If it is moving away from me then it’s probably my food and I should chase it.

These instinctual thoughts are the very first thing the brain is unraveling when it looks at anything - including a piece of art.

The key to any convincing painting is getting the what and the where to be believable. If you can do that, you are (almost) home free.

You don't need to be able to draw realistically, just good enough to satisfy the brain. In other words, what is important is not necessarily realism but believability. This is why the French Impressionists are so popular.

The What

In the basement of your brain, last door on the right, is The Department of Visual Memory. This office houses a giant filing cabinet of everything you have ever looked at. When you look at something, the eye draws a line around it files that "silhouette" or icon away for later identification.

If what you are looking at is recognizable and shows up in your memory, then Bob's Your Uncle. If not, you're in trouble and the Department of Visual Memory starts to hand out any files that look like anything close to what you're seeing. This is why in the dark, tree stumps can look like wild animals or on a sunny day, clouds can look like Mickey Mouse.

The What Test

This is an apple...

You say to me, "that, good sir is not an apple, perhaps it’s a cherry but not an apple" I say “but it’s round and has a stem on it, so it’s an apple.” Yet you still don't believe me.

So I draw it again and make a very minor adjustment.

You now say, “That, my good sir, is most certainly an apple and a scrumptious one at that.”

The change between the two drawings is very minor but it makes all the difference. You don't have to draw well but if your barn doesn't look like a barn or your cows don't have a cow-like shape, you are not going to convince anyone with your painting.

The Where

The brain tries to determine where something is in space. Near, far, coming or going. In the front half of the brain, the penthouse suite of the head, are the offices of the prefrontal cortex . Within these offices is the Spatial Relations Department and they are in charge of the Where.

This department lets us know if the object we're looking at is near or far. Is it near enough that I should chase it down to eat it? Or is it far away and perhaps I should I call "skip the dishes" tonight and order in.

In art, the Where relates to linear perspective. Without this our paintings become flat and two dimensional.

As in the previous drawing - with the addition of three simple lines we now have an apple that exists in space.

The Where Test

Here is a Ken Gillespie painting.

The mountains are simplified but they contain the ingredients to be recognized as a mountain. They're slightly blue. Little bit pointy and have some lighter stuff we identify as snow. Trees are the pointy kind, not the bouffant kind, which happen to grow near mountains. The land in the front has just enough perspective lines in it to give you the spacial relations.

In this Amy Dryer painting the people contain just the right amount of “carrot shape” to look like humans. The umbrella shape is so iconic that when it is placed above the carrot shape they are easily identified, Satisfying the what. The use of overlap give us perspective and the where factor.

No need to draw well just enough to identify the main object. Heck you don't even have to even draw all the flowers. This Kimberly Keil painting is your classic “guilty by association” painting. If you paint one or two recognizable things then paint blobs in the same colour near the identifiable shape, those blobs take on the persona of the identifiable shape.

The brain says "if that big red one is a flower, and the green bits are leaves and the sticky stem things look like stems, then the other red blobs must be flowers as well.”

If you learn to sketch a little, it will help your painting tromendously. So grab yourself a sketchbook and keep those pencils sharp.

Your friend in art,

Doug.

Green is easy to mix! Notice I used the word mix… not control… as I said greens can be hard to control. To make things a little easier, I complied this list of 10 things you should know about green.

1. First off, green isn't as green as you think. Most things you think are green aren't actually green. The common thought is that grass is green and trees are green but that’s a mistake.

   Look at these paintings that have things that “should” be green but haven't been painted as such…

Jill Carver used very little green in this Creek painting.

Note the lack of green in this Randall Sexton painting. Lot's of tree but no green.

Not much green in this Shanna Kunz prairie scene.

2. Most artists purchase too many greens. When you mix your greens it’s easier to control the outcome because you can set your own temperature bias with the colours you choose to start with. Any combination of blue and yellow will make a green. The trick is to know what blue and what yellow to use.

3. There are only two kinds of green - warm and cool. Green, being a secondary colour, will always have a bias to either blue (cool) or yellow (warm). Before you mix your green decide the following:

Here are a few tips and combinations that work well in most situations.

Ultramarine Blue is a good workhorse for most greens. It has a bit of a warm tendency but it's easily controlled with the right yellow. Almost all yellows have a green bias to them already so just about any yellow will make a good green.

The yellows I prefer are Cadmium Yellow Light and Cadmium Yellow Deep. If you mix the two yellows together you can get a decent Cadmium Yellow Medium. The cadmium yellow medium you buy generally has a large green bias to it, so it’s not a good choice for warm green mixes. I prefer to have a yellow on either side of the spectrum: Cad Yellow Light is very green biased while Cad Yellow Deep is very orange biased.

Cad Yellow Deep is wonderful for making warm greens. It's warm tendency allows for the addition of Cadmium Orange to make it even warmer.

• Cad Yellow Deep + Cad Yellow Light + Ultramarine Blue

  Make a nice neutral middle-of-the-road green.

• Cad Yellow Deep + Ultramarine Blue

  Make a nice green leaning towards warm. If you want it warmer add some Yellow Ochre to the combo. If it's an autumn tree you are painting, you can even add some Cad Orange to the mix.

• Yellow Ochre + Ultramarine Blue

  This combination makes a beautiful warm pine tree colour and is easily greyed off with a touch of red.

• Cad Yellow Light + Ultramarine Blue

  Makes a beautiful spring green.

For cooler greens I use a blue that leans more to the green side. Cerulean will work but I prefer Manganese because it is stronger and also makes a great turquoise.

• Cad Yellow Light + Manganese Blue

  Makes a stunning spring bright (bug gut) green. This too is easily tempered with some red.

4. Although I shy away from tubed greens, there are some pre-made greens worth mentioning.

• Viridian Green is very cool and soft. Because of it’s transparency it’s great for cool green shadows and perfect for glazing. It also makes a nice turquoise (just sneak in a little manganese blue).
• Phthalo Green If you need a mega bright over-the-top green and you can't achieve it in a mix, you may need to resort to the Chernobyl of greens, the nuclear Phthalo green. WARNING - it’s a bully and doesn't play well with others. Use with caution.

5. Temper your greens.

   Adding a touch of red to to your green will mellow it down and take away some of the harshness that greens seem to possess. As I said earlier, greens are rarely as green as you think. Calm them down a notch and you will be pleasantly surprised.

6. Practice your mixtures.

   One could always just paint the fall and winter scenes, but that seems about as fun as painting on the moon. Practise makes perfect! Get some cheap canvas boards and experiment with your greens. Throw in some white to see how they lighten. Throw in some red to see them dull down. Imagine all the place you could use these new found fun combos.

7. When making greens (or any colour for that matter), start bright and work down. It is always easier to dull a colour than to brighten it. The right path is to mix a vivid green and grey it down, than to mix a dull green and try to brighten it.

8. Transparent vs opaque.

   Transparent colours tend to recede and opaque colours come forward. If you want a green shadows to look right, use a transparent green. The problem here is that most mixed greens are opaque because most yellows are opaque (all the cads and yellow ochres and yellow oxides). This is why I like to keep Viridian green on my palette. It is transparent and used with ultramarine will bring some lustrous transparent greens to the mix.

9. Other than yellow and blue.

   Most blacks will make green. Blacks like Perylene Black are really just dark green. Other blacks have a heavy blue bias and when mixed with a yellow will produce a lovely green. Take for example this Anders Zorn painting where the greens were mixed with Ivory Black and Yellow Ochre.

Burnt Umber is also a dull green. Although I don't use this colour, I have seen some remarkable painting done solely in the earthy green. Here is a David Leffel painting using Burnt Umber and Cadmium Yellow.

10. Shhh….Don't tell red…purple and green like each other.

    It’s a secret affair. Throwing some purple in your greens makes them sing. Little violet on the tops of trees picks up the sky colour and helps the greens meld into the sky, making your trees look less cut out. Purple at the base of pine trees can bring a wonderful vibrancy to a painting.

BONUS

11. Don't forget about glazing to produce an optically mixed green rather than a physically produced green. But that's for anther lesson. If you can’t wait, ask Sue Contini about her optically mixed greens using acrylics .. she's is a pure genius when it come to paint.

Don’t forget to share your results… doug@swintonsart.com

Have a green summer,

Doug

1. The stronger the light source the darker the cast shadow.

• Strong Light = Dark Shadow
• Weak Light = Light Shadow

2. The higher the light source to the object the shorter the shadow. 
   e.g. Midday shadow vs afternoon shadow.
3. Form shadows have soft edges and cast shadows have harder edges.
4. The light side of and object is lit by sunlight which is generally a warm light. The shadow side is lit by sky light which is cooler in temperature than the sunlight. (sneak in a little violet)
5. The colour of the shadow is comprised of three elements. a.) A large amount of local colour (the actual colour of the the object) . b.) The complimentary colour of the light source. c.) A small amount of a dark accent. It's this dark accent that will set the shadow off. If your shadow is too dark, the accent won't make enough of a difference to make the shadow luminous.

In this John Poon painting notice the small amounts of dark accents that ground the tree and bring the shadows to life

6. Generally, cast shadows are cool and form shadows are warmer than cast shadows.
7. To get a feeling of light, you really need to paint the shadows correctly.
8. Black in light can be lighter in tone than white in shadow. Mind melt… SEE THIS ARTICLE
9. Try to connect your cast shadow and form shadow by painting them at the same time with a soft edge between
10. Take note of reflected light but suggest it rather than going overboard with it. Make it subtle.
11. (bonus) Render your lights and simplify your shadows (no detail)

NOTE: Shadows should be painted translucent. But this works only if you get the colour right. If you don't, it won't matter whether you paint them translucent or opaque, they won't look right and your work will suffer. Paint them the right value and temperature, and it won't matter if they're opaque or translucent - they will look right.

Thanks for coming out to paint with me,

Doug

With my apologies to Dr. Gimbel, here is my eye primer….

In the back of the eye there is a beehive of activity. Workers from two camps keep it all going. The brotherhood of rod workers local 144 and the non-union employees of the cone camp. Rod workers do the work of black and white while cones workers work with colour. There are about 120 million rod workers and only 6 million cone workers. This lopsided distribution means that rod workers are getting the job done at a more optimal pace than the cone crew.

The rod workers take everything we perceive and paint each vision in values of grey. The cone workers then match that values to a colour. Value trumps colour. This design was put there so we could see in the dark and ward off predators (or sneak a peanut butter sandwiche in the glow of the stove hood fan light).

This is why value in painting is a paramount to colour. Learn your values and you will get the golden ticket to colour. Although we recognize about 123,000,000 values, the Munsell colour system (which is what we primarily use for painting) has broken it down and simplified into 10 basic values.

1. Eyes wide open for colour but squint for values. Squinting helps you compare values. Black doesn't look as black until it’s against white. Nothing shows it’s true nature until it’s next to something comparable. Red is redder against green. When you squint, compare the value you are painting to the neighbouring values.

   I keep a strip of black hockey tape on my easel to remind me that nothing in my painting should be that dark - especially not the shadows.

2. Every artist should read "Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting" (even if you're not a landscape painter). Chapter 3: Angles and Consequent Values is especially useful. It is the standard for teaching of values. The make up of each and every object or plane upon which an object sits in your painting is based upon this metric. You base your colours upon the these value planes.

   In a nut shell, the chapter says: the more vertical an objet, the darker it will be. Therefore, generally speaking, your value for planes is as such:

• Skies are value 8 or 9
• Ground planes should be no more than 6 or 7
• Hills or oblique planes should fall in a 5 or 4
• Trees, light side is value 6 or 7
• Objects in shadow , 4 or 5 and a 3 for dark accents.
• Most ground plane shadows are no darker than a value 5

  If you step out of these value families, your painting will look murky, confused and muddy.

3. The lighter your values the less saturated the colour can be. Saturated colours read as a darker value.
4. Shadows outdoor are much lighter than in photos. If you want to bring a sense of light into your work try painting your shadows lighter.
5. Black and white studies. with no more than three values. Try some notan studies. Notan is the distribution of light and dark (not shading) for composition.https://drawpaintacademy.com/notan/
6. Identical values should not be placed in any two planes - only one! Otherwise your painting will flatten out and you will weaken the illusion of depth. You shouldn't have a ground plane value in your vertical upright tree plane value.
7. When you have two values that are the same next to one another but you need depth, try using chroma (strength of pigment) to differentiate. Bright colours read darker in value then they really are.
8. When objects (such as clouds) move away (deeper in the picture plane) the whites don't get darker! The shadows just get lighter and their values move closer together.
9. Take a photo of your painting with your phone and desaturate it. If it holds up, the values are correct. If it doesn't, assess where it needs some fixin'.
10. When working outside, try painting things a little lighter and a touch warmer. Your painting will look better when you bring it inside.
11. Bonus. Buy yourself a Value Finder….you'll thank me later.

Your friend in art

Doug.

• Why am I painting this scene? What interests me about it? Does it actually excite me?
• Does the shape and size of my canvas help or hinder the overall theme of my painting? Was my canvas or paper the same dimension as my sketch? (You did do a sketch first - right?)
• Is the division of space dynamic? Do I have a clearly defined composition? Is it a foreground, a sky-scape or a middle ground painting? Am I boring people with a third-third-third sky, middle and foreground?
• Are the darks too dark?
• Are the colours too garish?
• Is the brush work interesting?
• Is the movement organized throughout my painting or is everything chaotic?
• Are the objects grouped artistically or is everything haphazardly placed? Is everything organized to achieve a rhythm and balance?
• Do the trees look like mother nature put them there or like the army core of engineers planted them?
• Is there a focal point? Is it in the right place? Is it actually interesting?
• Is the perspective correct? Do I need a lesson on perspective?
• Is there a well-established horizon line which tells the viewer that everything sits correctly and creates a sense of depth?
• Is the value range consistent with the mood of the scene?
• Is there an interesting light and dark pattern?
• Are the negative shapes in the painting varied?
• Is the temperature in the painting consistent and predominately warm or cool?
• Is the total presentation attractive?
• Did I paint within a limited colour harmony or use every Crayola in the box?
• Is there too much or not enough detail? Is the detail in the right place (focal point)?

If you can’t formulate the right question or find the answers you’re looking for it’s a good idea to seek help from your peers. There are many other questions you can ask and they may help you ask the right one. Good questions are the key to solving painting problems.

Happy fixing!

Your friend in art,

Doug

1. Focus People! Focus!

The problem with most cameras (especially the one in your iPhone) is that they take pictures with everything in focus. This is not natural. We don’t see this way. When you focus on something, everything around it blurs out.

Your camera (when not set correctly) will render everything in detail. Too much detail can be the death of any painting because the more detail that’s presented, the more detail the brain wants. Detail fuels a desire that’s technically impossible to satisfy.

This is especially true when painting backgrounds. If you over-modelled your background, the need for even more details in the mid and fore ground becomes overwhelming.

You don’t have to paint every twig or gopher that you see in the photo. Leaving something for the imagination is always a better choice. The brain will make

up what it needs better than anything you could ever paint.

Solution: Use texture rather than detail.

2. Horizontal perspective Skew

Cameras are notorious for throwing the horizontal perspectives off. This gets worse when using a telephoto or zoom lens. The more you zoom in the more your perspective will be out. This happens all too often when people zoom in to take a portrait.

When you use a telephoto lens or zoom in to get close, the far side of the face starts to flip around and flatten your photo out giving a 2-dimensional feel. The more you zoom in the more your horizontal line will skew away from horizontal.

This is called pin cushion distortion, most noticeable in images with straight lines. The further the lines are away from the centre of the image, the more noticeable the distortion will be. In portraits this can cause heads to look too small when compared to hands and shoulders.

With a wide angle lens, the closer you are to your subject the more barrel

distortion you will get. Using a wide angle lens for a portrait will cause the nose to look big and bulbous. The best focal length for portraits is

50mm and above when trying to avoid distortion.

3. Verticals Perspective Skew

For the most part, your painting will use one or two-point perspective. Unless you are painting Spiderman zipping from tall buildings, there is no need for three-point perspective and therefore we can assume that all vertical lines contain no perspective to speak of and can remain vertical.

The result of using a wide-angle or a zoom lens is that vertical lines that should be parallel begin to converge, portraying an unwanted perspective. For

example: buildings appear to fall backwards more severely when the camera is pointed upward from ground level than they would if photographed with a normal lens.

When you have tall items to photograph, back off the zoom. You’re better to shoot from a distance and later use your computer to do the “zooming” by cropping the image.

4. Lens Pile Up

Although it is highly recommend to buy a good camera if you are serious about painting from photographs, you need to know that they too have their little white lies just as your smart phone or tablet. Whatever device you are using, nasty things can happen when zooming in.

What is commonly know as lens distortion comes in two forms; extension distortion and compression distortion.

Extension distortion happens when you are using a wide-angle lens (for taking panoramic scenes). Objects close to the lens appear abnormally large relative to more distant objects, and distant objects appear abnormally small and hence farther away – distances are extended the wider you go.

Although you can see everything, hills shrink and mid grounds get pushed back, leaving the photo looking weak and minuscule. The phrase “objects in the mirror are closer than they appear” comes to mind.

Compression distortion happens when you are using a telephoto (zoom) lens (with an angle of view narrower than a normal lens). With this lens, objects from foreground to background look approximately the same size – closer objects are abnormally small, and more distant objects are abnormally large, hence the viewer cannot discern relative distances between distant objects – in short, distances are compressed.

Cell phones don’t have these lens issues but they have different problems, namely that the edges of photos get distorted.

This ball should be spherical not elliptical.

This can cause grief especially in still life photos. If you don’t like this effect, you need to with take a picture of your subject from a distance and crop it later.

5. Average Colour

Dslr cameras have a much wider dynamic range (the range of luminance values between the darkest and brightest perceptible points in an image), so they are much better for capturing colour than smartphones but they skew colours as well. For the most part, all cameras tend to average out colours. There may be three or four colours in a shadow you’re perceiving but the photo shows just one generalized colour.

This issue gets worse when you print your pictures in a place like Costco. Their machine takes the camera's average and average it out further.

6. Stuck In The Middle With You

Cameras have come a long way from the days of the focus being in the middle of the view finder. Many a bad photo was shot because of this silly focus donut thingy that was placed smack dab in the middle of the viewfinder, screaming at you to put everything in the centre of your shot. How could you resist?

The tendency is to take photos with the horizon line right across the middle with equal amount of foreground, middle ground and background. This creates an image screaming a third-third-third composition - one of the most prevalent issues in a weak painting.

There is a tool to fix this problem. On every smart phone, tablet or camera there is a rule-of-thirds grid that can be turned on (consult your manual or the nearest 7 year old). This grid gives you an idea of where to place the horizon line and doubles as a centre of interest locator.

7. Blow Out

When exposing for the light areas, chances are the darks will be too dark. If you focus on the darks then the lights will be blown out (too light) with no information or temperature in them.

Remember: when working from your reference photo, paint your shadows areas a bit lighter in value and you will gain more luminosity in your painting. Leave some room for dark accents.

To fix blown out highlights, make sure you add a temperature to your lightest lights. It can be cool or warm, but to make your painting stand out it needs a clear temperature because pure white lacks vitality.

Alternately, open your photo in any one of the photo editing apps and lighten the shadows. If you're cheap like me, you can hold your printed photo up to a well-lit window, or backlight it with the flashlight on your cell phone to see what is hidden in those dark areas. Try it.

8. Duplicity

One of the perils of photo reference is when a painter uses multiple photos to paint their composition. There is nothing wrong with this if the multiple photos were shot at the same location, same light source and time in sequence. Just make sure you don’t start to mix and match photos like the bulk bins at the grocery store! Be very aware to use the same direction of light, etc.

The time of year needs to be considered as well. At our latitude, the position of the sun varies immensely from summer to winter. Nothing is weirder than seeing a painting with shadows going all over the place.

The other thing I see all too often are buildings that are out of perspective. If the artist uses different photos taken from different distances and angles, they sit on different horizon lines and have different vanishing points.

9. Edit Edit Edit

For some reason, when we use photos as reference we have a strong compulsion to paint every little thing we see. EDIT… Take out the stuff that is not important. If you can’t see it when you squint, leave it out of your painting. Unless you are renting a hall and a caterer you’re not married to the photo. Take some liberties and use the photo as a starting point. Leave out all that detail. A painting should be a poem, not a police report.

Happy editing,

Your friend in art

Doug.

Jack explains…

“Monday thru Friday I practise golf. I take my coach with me and I have him set up routine for me to practice all week. On Saturday I play a full round. I do not think about golf, I just golf. I hit the ball. I chip. I putt. After the game I sit with my coach over a frosty pint and he tells me all the things I did wrong. On Monday, the practice begins again. Practice is the key to playing but when you practice you are not playing and when playing you are not practising."

Same goes for your art. Practising painting is essential for making improvements. Do it all week and on Saturday, you paint. Nothing more. Everything you practiced will automatically fall into place. After you paint, your weakness will be evident and that is what you must practice next week.

The key is to know what you’re practicing! Here is an article on how to ask yourself the right questions about your painting. Self Critique - Asking the right questions about your painting.

Start Practicing Today...

Practice. Verb: repeat the action to improve; Exercise. Hone. Prepare. Rehearse. Study. Train. Warm up. Work. Work out. Discipline. Dress. Drill. Habituate. Iterate. Polish. Recite. Sharpen. Become seasoned. Build up. Do again. Do over. Repeat. Repeat again. And again. And again. Dress rehearse. Dry run. Go over. Run through. Shake-down. Try out. Tune up. Walk through. Acuminate. Furbish. Cultivate. Self mastery. Educate. Plan. Train. Run down. Evolve. Structure. Plan your work. Work your plan. Sub structure. Methodize. De-bug. Purpose. Project.

1. Practice: 30 tree paintings in a row
2. Practice: 25 sky paintings in a row
3. Practice: 15 mountain paintings in a row
4. Practice: 10 Hoary Marmot paintings in a row
5. Practice: 5 paintings of your breakfast in a row

It doesn't really matter what you paint as long as you plan your work and work your plan.

Below are 8 (6x8) 20 minute boat paintings I did in two days as part of my practice.

Keep those brushes swinging!

Your friend in art,

Doug.

Long before Christmas, ancient Celtic people revered evergreen plants, like holly, ivy and mistletoe for their ability to stay green in the darkest of winter months. They used these pleasing plants to brighten up homes, churches and workplaces during the long lifeless season. They celebrated the winter solstice by decorating their homes with holly to bring protection and good luck to their families in the coming year. These plants gave hope and the promise of spring and that winter wouldn’t last forever (unless you lived in Canada.)

The Romans exchanged evergreen branches during January as a sign of good luck. The ancient Egyptians used to bring the green palm branches into their houses during the mid-winter festivals for good luck.

In many parts of Europe during the middle ages, Paradise plays were performed, often on Christmas Eve. They told Bible stories to people who couldn’t read. In the play, the ‘Paradise Tree’ , the tree in the garden of Eden was normally a pine tree with red apples tied to it. This is thought to be the root for the Christmas tree tradition.

The custom of pairing red and green dates continued into the 14th century when the colours were used to paint medieval rood screens, which were partitions installed in churches to separate the congregation from the priest and the altar. These screens and the boundary they created, influenced Victorians to associate the colours with a different boundary, marking the end of the old year and the beginning of a new one at Christmas.

Despite these meaningful religious traditions, there’s a person in the modern times that we can thank for establishing the Christmas colours.

The artist Haddon Sundblom. Never heard of him? He’s the guy that Coca-Cola hired to draw a Santa Claus for the company’s ads. He is generally considered as the inventor of the modern Santa.

Until that point, artistic renditions of Santa were never consistent. He was usually a much thinner looking dude, and was more creepy than jolly. His robes varied between blue, green, and a very sanguinary red.

Sundblom chose to make him chubby and jolly the heck out of him. He also painted him wearing red robes (the colour of the Coke logo). He would then paint him surrounded with a lesser amount of green in various places.

The ads grew in popularity, and people came to know Sundblom’s Santa as the real enchilada. (which are full of red and green chillies and I think should be served at Christmas.) The red of Santa’s robes parcelled with the evergreens plants we use decorate, solidified the collective symbolism of Christmas.

The history of how red and green came to symbolize Christmas is a lot like the holiday itself: deeply rooted in religious tradition, modernized by commercialism, and continued by spirits of joy and good cheer.

Merry Christmas!

Hope you get some vermillion and viridian under your tree. :)

Your friend in art

Doug.

1. Value Before Colour

In most painting compositions the sky should be the lightest value. In the hundreds of critiques I have done over the years, one common factor repeats itself - The value of the sky is too dark, generally causing the rest of your the values to drop down, causing an overall sombre feeling to the work. This is even more of a common occurrence in outdoor painting. Tune your values to the sky and you will get a better read on the painting. Be careful especially on overcast days, when the sky may seem dark and dreary . There is a lot more light radiating than you think.

When I am painting on a white canvas, I will usually leave the canvas bare in the sky area until well into the painting process. I like to key the flat land or “ground planes” based on the value of this blank white canvas or sky area. This area is already close to the right value and I work with it as long as I can.

Conversely, if I have a toned canvas I will put some kind of light value into the sky fairly early on so that I can key the flat ground plane to this sky value in order to get the correct land value.

2. Top to Bottom

Gradation in value and temperature from top to bottom makes your sky read more accurately.

The horizon of the sky tends to be bluer, greener and cooler than the zenith of the sky. This is how it works… On a clear Alberta day, when you look at the horizon (where sky meets earth), it is approximately 125 kms away. Looking straight up, from the ground to where the sky turns to space, we can only see about 50 kms. The farther away things are, the bluer and cooler the colour gets. Because the distance to the zenith is half the distance of the horizon, colour is much warmer and darker. The horizon has a blue-green sometimes lemon yellow cast to it, while the top of the sky will be much warmer having more of a red bias to it.

Safe bet: Manganese blue at the bottom and Ultramarine near the top.

3. Side to Side

The sky gradation is not only from top to bottom but also side to side. Colours that are closer to the light source will be warmer. Colours away from the sun will be cooler in temperature and take on an almost violet colour.

• Lighter and warmer towards the direction of the sun (sunlight).
• Cooler and darker away from the direction of the sun (skylight).

4. Go Big or Go Home

Skies are often the most abstract part of a landscape, so you can really have a lot of fun conveying all the energy and drama that the atmosphere can provide. With a big brush (and I mean big), strokes can be applied with freedom. This is the part of the painting where you can truly showcase your brushwork and put some personality into the painting.

Use your largest brushes and be as loose as you can, but try to make every brushstroke count. You don’t need to show things exactly as they are, you can adjust elements to improve the composition and create more or less drama. What matters is that you have the right value and convey the right mood in a bold way.

5. Thick over Thin

One way to achieve the feeling of atmospheric light travelling towards you is to use thicker paint. Thin paint recedes and thick paint come forward. Be aware that thick paint tends to read darker in value than it is. The way to compensate for this is to paint on a thin layer in the correct value first, then apply a second thicker layer. From time to time I will use a slightly warmer tone in the first thinner layer then come back over it with a thicker cooler colour letting some of the warm colour underneath show through.

6. Blue Bayou

For most sky paintings I will paint all the clouds (shadows, mid-tone and highlights) first then negative paint the blue of the sky around the clouds. This gives the clouds a fluffier feel.

7. No Whites After Labor Day

Remember that the farther away whites are from the viewer, the warmer they appear. So keep the whites in your clouds a little warmer than you think.

8. Rainbow Road

Referring back to what was mentioned in #2 and #3 there can be many colours in the sky other than blue. Try a combination of purples, violets or greens to add some variety into your sky. Just remember to keep your values close when you’re adding other colours so they don’t “pop” and alienate themselves.

9. The Grey Way

As much as everyone loves the bright colours of sunrises and sunsets, a painting crammed with a myriad of intense colours gets a little tiresome on the eyes. Neutral, greyed down colours allow for resting areas and help enhance the more intense areas.

Some dull and “ugly” colours are necessary to make the vibrant colours sing. Greys are a great complement to a colourful sky. A bright orange will look even brighter if placed next to a purply grey.

NOTE: When I say grey, I don’t mean a mixture of black and white or grey from a tube. To keep the greys chromatic while ensuring colour harmony, create them with triads of complementary colours. You should always be using some sort of combination of red, yellow and blue.

10. Building Blocks

I usually build up a painting with layers from dark to light, ending up with the thickest application of paint for the highlights. To achieve vibrant sunsets, or sunrises, prime your canvas with a bright orange or yellow and then add the clouds, greys and blues in the skies, making sure you let some of the ground colour show through, especially in the most vibrant parts of the sunset. Finish with some touches of bright yellow mixed with white to enhance the focal points.

Tip: Morning skies are generally cool in nature and sunsets are warmer.

11. Bonus!

To make the snow on mountains look brighter, darken the value of your sky a little to make the whites look brilliant. Caution though, if you darken the sky too much you can loose the glow in your mountains reflected light.

Here are 10 fun paintings of skies that are not painted blue...

This Camille Przwewodek piece has a lovely soft feel and the pink sky brings it all together.

The yellow sky Mark Hanson plays up adds to the feel of the heavy winter air.

Bill Duma plays up a yellow sky to bring harmony to the landscape and the feel of the cool evening air.

Lori Putnam is choosing a complimentary colour scheme and finishes the painting off nicely with a red sky. Okay its pink, but pink is just red with white in it….. A red sky I tell you, now that’s a slam dunk.

Painting the sky the same value and colour as the back water takes skill. Maybe its more guts than skill, or maybe a bit of both, but whatever it is it works. Kudos to Robert Genn.

Carol Zoilla Captures the misty feel with the use of the lavender theme in this small piece.

Scott Christensen laying it on thick. Nice use of texture.

Mike Svob knows only too well how to place a two toned green and yellow sky to play off the red boats.

UK artist Peter Wileman with a purple sky.

From the land down under, Cholley Whissan lusciously paints a dark sky here to play off the warm land make it pop brighter and it works beautifully.

Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Your friend in art,

Doug