Unfinished, underdone, unrealized, over realized, overworked, overdone, exhausted or bedraggled, paintings don’t spoil like eggs in the fridge. Chances are they were rotten to begin with. Let them go!

Sometimes it can be the “I’m not finished yet” syndrome along with the old “I’m still working on this one” that leads to the mounting pile. Remember friends, paintings are never really finished, they just present interesting places to stop.

Another condition is the constant and perennial need to achieve perfection. This tendency leads to a lack of vision and to possibility for self-improvement. Growth is stunted when the artist works from an ivory tower of perfection.

The opposite of this can be a factor as well. The “nartist”. The narcissistic artist is one who loves everything they make and treats every work as a special child and thus keep’s everything they make and the pile just keeps getting bigger.

Let the purge begin...

One way to start is to purge any paintings over two years old. By this I’m talking about unfinished, unfulfilled, undeveloped, incomplete, fragmentary paintings. Not the work you’re storing for sale. If you have a pile of half-baked and confused paintings that are over two years old, get rid of them. You are not the same artist you were two years ago. You are wiser and more seasoned and full of new tricks. All your newfound skills will clash with the old paintings anyway. Paint from the leading edge not the rear-view mirror.

Another way to purge older work is to crop. Look for well painted passages that might make a smaller painting. Try putting a smaller frame or a mat around select areas and see if anything sings. If something does, you may have a new painting to frame!

Fact is, you will not generally improve by misguided analysis of your own efforts. Brutal honesty is what’s needed here. Divorcing yourself from the majesty of your efforts and seeing your work as it really is can take time, mileage and a lot of wine but it is an essential task.

Compare the work in your portfolio that has met the standard with dubious work that is unfinished. Ask your self a few hard questions like:

• Will this ever meet my standard?
• Am I ever actually going to work on this painting?
• Do I really even like this painting?
• Might this idea work better if I had a fresh start? 

If you’re still unsure, use the Robert Genn patented “three bins” technique by sorting the work into IN-OUT-MAYBE categotries. Then take a second pass and you will find that the work in the “maybe” bin will often tip to the “out” bin.

Another invigorating way to get rid of work is to T.O.D. it. “Time of Death.”  Play a coroner, take a big black marker and write TOD 10:15 am. right on the painting in big bold letters. This is a very euphoric and liberating experience.

Lastly, one thing that’s always fun, is to have a ceremonial burning. Throwing unrealized paintings in the fire releases the bad energy and evil spirits that blocked you. Doing this in a group with other artists is very tribal, ethereal and freeing with lots of good karma all around.

How wonderful it feels when this thing is out of you life! Once you rid yourself of all the clutter in the studio and have freed up some cranium space, new work will begin to bloom. A good cleaning will spawn growth, fresh ideas and new directions. 

For me it was spring that brought it on but anytime can be springtime in the studio. :)

Happy fresh painting! 

Your friend in art,

Doug

1. Paint from Dark to Light

In most cases you want your darks relatively dark and fairly transparent. Any addition of white to this will sully your darks, making them look cloudy or chalky. The longer you can keep out the white, the fresher the painting will look. It’s also easier to lighten a colour than to darken a colour. That rule alone should tell you to paint from dark to light. There are times, however, that call for the reversal of this rule...

If your darks comprise of less than 10% of the light area surrounding it, then you can put them in on top of the lights. For example: If you are painting a snow covered mountain and there are a few dark rocks that need to be painted in the snow, you can carefully add them after the light has been placed. The same holds true for ground shadows. If there are only a few small patches of dark shadows in a lit area, you can paint them in afterwards.

It’s nearly impossible to paint the light around these small darks and given their small size, they are quite easily placed on top of the light. Just be sure to clean your brush after each daub or your dark will quickly turn to a muddy mid-tone.

2. Never Use Black

You’ll often hear artists say that you shouldn’t use pre-mixed tubes of black paint, such as Ivory Black or Mars Black, and in general that’s grand advice. Black pigments (being so opaque) can make your paintings look flat, especially if you use the black to darken other colours. Any time you can, you should mix your darks (ex. Ultramarine and Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine and Quinacridone Rose, Viridian and Alizarin). You’ll often end up with a more vibrant painting if you mix your blacks from combinations of other colours rather than relying on black.

Breaking the rule: Recently, Gamblin introduced Chromatic Black into it’s arsenal of colours. Chromatic Black is the first black made that is transparent. This transparency allows you to mix black into colour combinations and grey them down without turning them into a dull mess. Chromatic Black is fairly weak so you can use it handily without fear. It’s my new favourite colour!

3. Warm Light, Cool Shadows (and vice versa)

This is one of the hard and fast rules you can usually count on. If the light source is warm, then the shadows will be cool, and if the light source is cool, then the shadows will be warm.

When to break this rule:

When you have a lot of reflections involved, the light will bounce around affecting the shadows because what the light is bouncing off of will change it’s core temperature. A still life that is sitting on a bright red fabric may have a warm light source but may also have a warm shadow. Highly reflective objects like silver and brass can also greatly change this rule. When light is travelling through a transparent substance like water, things can also get a bit screwy. Make sure you assess the scene accurately and paint what you’re actually seeing, even if it seems to go against the rule you’re familiar with.

4. The Rule of Thirds

The [rule of thirds](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds) is a compositional device whereby you divide your painting surface into three equal sections, both horizontally and vertically, and place your focal point at any one of the intersecting points. This device is used to produce a more pleasing and interesting composition than if you placed your focal point, say, dead centre or too close to the edge of the painting.

When to break this rule:

Using the rule of thirds to help place the elements of your paintings is not a bad practice in general, and is good to follow if your struggling with composition. However, if you rely on it too often, your work may become formulaic and predictable, so it’s a good idea to shake things up from time to time by experimenting with unusual compositions. Edgar Payne’s book “The Composition of Outdoor Painting” is a must read for anyone trying to enhance their design skills. Sometimes a non-standard composition might be exactly what your painting needs, so don’t be afraid to push the boundaries if you think it will work.

5. Warm Colours Advance, Cool Colours Recede

It’s a widely held belief that if you want something to appear closer, you should paint it warmer, and if you want something to recede into the distance you should paint it cooler. Again, there is truth to this, but it’s not a hard and fast rule. I think this rule comes from the fact that in a landscape scene, the objects in the distance are filtered through more veils of atmosphere, and certain colours are filtered out of our vision. The first colours to be filtered out are the warm oranges, reds and yellows, so the distant objects appear more blue, as well as less saturated. So this rule mainly applies for landscapes during daylight.

When to break this rule:

Break this rule during lighting conditions such as sun rises and sunsets. Night scenes and nocturnes can throw out this rule as well. Also anything with indoor or artificial lighting, where you can have very warm colours in the distance, and cool colours in the foreground. Remember - paint what you’re seeing!

6. Always have a good sketch to paint from.

Sketching is a fundamental art skill. I cannot stress how important a good thumbnail sketch is to aid the painting process. One doesn’t need to be able to draw like a pro to paint well but the fundamentals of drawing need to be present. That being said, sometimes overdrawing at the start can be the death of a painting. You can take your drawing as far as you like in your sketchbook but during the transfer to your painting support you should only have just enough information to get your painting started: horizon line, a few accurate registration marks, and perhaps some lines connecting your dark patterns. You don’t always need to have a full drawing on the canvas to start a painting.

7. Only paint in good light.

Up until a few years ago this was a steadfast rule. Painting in good light, such as the Golden Hour, makes your job so much easier. This is true, especially when taking photographs for painting reference, but here is why you should consider braking this rule...

Reflected light can make a painting sing, and the stronger the light source, the more reflected light you will have. This makes painting in the bright sunny noonday sun a bonus. It’s a challenge that comes with great benefits. Just ask artists like Matt Smith or Lori Putnam what wonderful things can be painted in the middle of the day if you look hard enough.

8. Bad Reference = Bad Painting

For the most part I hold this rule to be true, but pay attention to what you actually need in a good reference photo. Mother nature, in all her glory, is rarely kind to us artists. Even a good photo will need a few tweaks to perk it up and sometimes there is gold in what might be considered a “bad” photo. Ask yourself: What is making this photo bad? No lights? Too dark or monochromatic? Too much going on? No centre of interest? ... And consider this... Low light actually presents great design opportunities! Monochromatic photo may present a chance to bring out the nuances of a colour and make it sing! No centre of interest lets you become the author of your own story! Dig deep and you might find treasure in a bad reference photo.

9. Fast and furious at the beginning; Slow and stead near the end.

This is another one of those rules I hold close to my heart. I follow it almost religiously. However, there are times when this rule needs to be broken. More often than not near the end of the painting when things are not working and certain passages have been painted, re-painted and re-re-painted and still things won’t work, one needs to stop and re-examine. The culprit could be the delicate touch and overthinking. If that is the case, all your painting needs is some good fast lickin’ with a big brush and thick paint. Less thinking and more doing.

10. Always paint your sky last.

This is a good rule for outdoor painting and painting on a white canvas. Given that you should key your paintings to the sky, which is almost always the lightest value in a landscape painting, then the white of the canvas should suffice to be the right value to start out with. With the sky in place you just need to place your darks to set up your value keys correctly. On a toned canvas, however, this method isn’t always the best, especially if your toning is a medium light to mid-value tone or a darker toning. This darker value in the sky can throw all your other values out of whack. In that case, scrub some light value of a colour in the sky to correctly establish the value relationships. This is also true in some mountain paintings where you may want to drop the sky’s value to make the snow pop a bit more. Rule broken.

Happy painting.

Your friend in art,
Doug.

1. Practise, Practise, Practise.

Just as a musician, dancer or athlete must practice and train to maintain a level of excellence, drawing the figure from life on a regular basis keeps an artist in good form. Life drawing is like calisthenics for the artist. Moreover, attending sessions regularly affords an excellent means to develop a better work ethic. Just as one is more apt to continue an exercise program with companions, drawing in the company of a group provides an incentive to keep practicing. There is no overstating the value of a regimen that keeps one in the activity of drawing, circumventing any number of distractions at home or simply overcoming a case of artist’s block.

Michelangelo wrote in one of his many sketchbooks: “There is no greater harm than that of time wasted. Draw Antonio, draw Antonio, draw and do not waste time.”

2. The whole enchilada.

Life drawing is taught to many budding artists as an introduction into the world of art, even artists that don’t primarily want to specialize in the human form, because the human body is a complex object which allows an artist to learn about a variety of essential techniques. Observing and interpreting the shape of the human body trains an artist to see almost every form of curve, line, and subtle undulation found in nature.

Furthermore, while rendering the figure, an artist is able to witness how the entire body reacts when certain characteristics are present, including posture changes and gestures which can help them evoke an emotion in their own pieces. This translates directly to creating artwork which is not necessarily human focussed.

3. Finding hidden elements.

Although the beauty of a painting is that it is still and unmoving, the true art comes from the ability of the artist to depict a hidden movement within their work. Many artists tend to avoid including dramatic movement in their artwork – as it is often seen as too complex to convey – the movement of the human body can give a detailed insight into the world of movement and fluidity that make art truly sing.

4. Kodachrome.

A photograph rarely offers the subtle variations in vantage point possible when drawing from life. Even the best photographs provide mostly an abundance and even an over-abundance of surface detail, but not the essence of a pose. For the most part, photos are lifeless, cold and full of lies. What could be lost edges becomes hard and direct because the gentle light quality lacks all the delicious subtleties and lays flat and two-dimensional. There is no weight shift, tension points or gestures. It is possible to obtain these elements from a photograph, but only if one understands them first by seeing them in real life.

5. Do you have any idea how fast you’re going?

If you want to get better at what you’re trying you do, try going a little faster. You will very quickly learn where your faults are. Life drawing for the most part involves shorter poses. From quick gestures - 30 seconds to two minutes - to more extended poses – five minutes to thirty minutes or more. The fast pace of life drawing is a happy little bonus that will speed up your regular painting. By learning to make decisions on the fly, you will make quicker more astute decisions in your painting. The faster gestures poses allow you to find the underlying curves, the angles and tension points that makes the pose sing. Quite often it’s the shorter poses that look the most fresh. This freshness is the subtle element that can make a painting really dance.

6. Peeking is allowed.

Rarely do you get to see other artist’s work in process. The group environment allows you to see how others experiment and tackle problems in various ways. You can learn a lot about your own work by seeing a multitude of styles and the multitude of mediums being used.

7. Means to no end.

There is something very liberating and peaceful about life-drawing. Like in a meditation, you are in the moment, without thoughts, lost in time. The set time limit allows you to know when you’re done and it’s no biggie if you didn’t get “finished”. It’s all about the process, and there is another pose coming. The fact that your sketch really means nothing and ends whenever it does, makes for a stress-free time. Simply put, your drawings are what they are - an end to no means.

Happy drawing my friends,

Doug Swinton

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  

1. Front Lighting

Although this is perhaps the most challenging lighting condition for painters, yet it happens to be the most widely used. Front lighting make for the most lacklustre paintings. This includes all those photo references taken during the middle of the day with almost no shadow. In portraiture, the biggest culprit is using your on-camera flash.

In this lighting condition there are no shadows to help us create the illusion of form. It shows minute detail and limited local values, making for a boring and lifeless painting.

There are no discernible shadows to help accentuate the form.

Not enough shadows to work from in this front-lit mountain.

2. Form Lighting

“Winner winner chicken dinner”

This is the easiest and most common set up. As the name implies, this lighting condition helps us define the illusion of three dimensions by giving us a light side and shadow side to create form. It is the painter’s best option for showing three dimensions.

Typically three-quarters to two-thirds of the subject is illuminated by the light. This can also be reversed and is what is sometimes know as “chiaroscuro”. What you don’t want to do is have your lighting so it is half lit and half in the shadow. Half and half might be good for your coffee but not your painting.

3. Rim Lighting

In this lighting condition, the subject is three-quarters or more in the shadow and one-quarter or less in the light. The light is actually coming from behind the subject, creating a brilliant illumination. The lights are compressed within a two value range (typically between 8th and 10th value), so the changes in the light are difficult to determine. Most of the modelling is done in the expanded shadow value range. Fantastic for a dramatic effect.

Great example of Rim Lighting by Matt Smith.

4. Back Lighting

As the name suggest, the light source is behind your subject. Similar to Rim Lighting but with very little or no edge light. This can be difficult to paint but extremely good for creating drama. Be careful not to over-model in your shadows.

Tips to remember:

• The lighting for your subject/composition is paramount to the design of your painting. Mediocre lighting is the death of most paintings. The worse the lighting the stronger your design must be.

• No matter how little light you have on your subject, you still need to show the type of lighting you are portraying. Neglecting this makes for a flat and lifeless painting. Even if your light is low or poor quality, you still need to show how it affects all the planes on the objects. (Top planes, side planes, oblique planes and front planes.) Bad light is harder to paint but can be done successfully if you pay careful attention to all the planes.

• Keep your darks relatively thin and transparent and your lights thick and juicy.

• Paint the object that is in the light with local colour plus the colour of the light source. The colour of the light source directly affects the hue on the light side of form. The colour of the light source influences everything.

• The chroma in the cast shadow gets slightly weaker as it comes towards the viewer, and stronger as it nears the object casting the shadow.

• The less light and shadow you have to distinguish differences, the more you need to use temperature change.

Happy painting. Your friend in art,

Doug

1. Value

Items that are nearer on the picture plane have a higher degree of value range (the lights and dark difference). As the distance recedes the values will get closer and more narrow. Trees in the front of the picture may use a value range from 2 to 8 but trees nearer the horizon line , well into the picture plane, may have a range of only 5 to 7. Objects like rocks and trees or clouds get closer in values as they recede having less and less contrast.

Painting by Matt Smith WEBSITE

2. Temperature

Warm tones come forward and cool tones recede. Colours cool significantly as they move back into the picture plane. Notice how all the warms are near the front of this David Santillanes (FACEBOOK) painting.

3. Chroma

Bright colours come forward and dull colours recede. If you want something to look like it’s in the distance, not only do you need to cool it off but you must also make it duller.

In this Jill Carver (WEBSITE) painting all the brightest colours are in the front of the canvas and as you recede the colours get much more muted. This is a good reason to have a puddle of grey always working for you on your palette.

4. Linear Perspective

The more vertical a line is, the more it comes forward. The more horizontal a line is, the more it tends to recede. Angles get more acute as they near the bottom of the canvas and get more horizontal as they recede into the plane of the picture.

The subtle “s”curve is another way to use this method.

Painting by Scott Christensen WEBSITE

5. The Big 3 Shape Changers

Overlapping shapes, size and layering are 3 other methods that can be used to achieve depth. These can be used alone or in conjunction with each other in placement.

Objects should look bigger as they get near to you and smaller as they recede.

Overlapping objects will air in recession as well. Proper placement of objects helps.

Notice how cloud “c” seems larger than cloud “a”. The optical illusion here is because things closer to eye level should be smaller in size. By combining size and placement you get a stronger sense of recession. 

6. Foreground Interest

Sticking some big stuff in the foreground of the painting can do wonders for creating the illusion of distance. Have a look as this John Carlson painting (Yes - the same John Carlson that wrote the book you should re-read. You do have Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting don’t you?)

7. Detail and Texture

Objects have more detail the closer they are and less as they recede. Also, thick paint tends to come foreword and thin paint tends to recede. This all needs to be held into context if you’re using it to enhance your centre of interest.

Although it”s hard to tell from a photograph, this Ted Goerschner painting has all the thicker paint applied to the tea pot and the fruit in the front of the painting. The flowers and vase have a thinner application. 

In this world class painting by some unknown dude from Calgary (WEBSITE), he has used a combination of techniques.

• Cooler colours in the back and warmer colours in the front.
• A slight “s” curve to lead you in.
• Overlapping trees.

Again, hard to tell from a photograph, but the paint in the snow has been applied with a heavier application, while the trees are thinner and the hill in the back is thinner yet. (I know, because I know the guy who painted it.)

Thats all for now kiddies. Keep those brushes swinging! 

Your friend in art,

Doug.

Mud

Muddy colours come from three culprits…

• Bad value exchange. Having middle of the road values and having the wrong value for the plane you are painting.
• Dirty equipment. Begrimed brushes, a messy palette including contaminated whites (oil and acrylic) or polluted thinner/water.
• Having too many colours on your palette and not knowing what they will do. It’s amazing what you can do with less colours. Anders Zorn quite often used only 4 colours to paint his masterpieces. See the Bonus Tip below.

Keep this in mind because no amount of colour theory can fix this problem. Most of you know me as a very messy painter, but I assure you - even though I myself may be a mess, I keep my equipment (brushes, thinner and palette) clean.

4 Steps to Colour Mixing

There are 4 main steps to matching any colour and if you use them in the right order you will get cleaner and more accurate results every time. 

1. Hue
2. Bias
3. Value
4. Chroma

This is the correct order! If you put chroma before value your colours will turn chalky.

The most important thing to remember before we begin mixing colours is that there are only 6 colours on your palette. I don’t care how many tubes you squeezed out, they all fall into one of the following six colours:

Primary: Red, Yellow, Blue. Secondary: Orange, Green, Purple.

That’s it! Knowing that, we can now begin the process of identifying the colour you want. 

1. Hue

Identify the colour you want to make.

Identifying the right hue (colour) is the first step in the process. It seems simple, but this is where most people falter. You must carefully observe and describe (in words) the colour you are trying to make.

The problem occurs when you use vague terms for your colour…

For example: Brown is not a good way to describe colour. Burnt Sienna is brown, and so is Raw Umber. BUT! Burnt Sienna is an orange and Raw Umber is a green! 

Therefore, saying “brown” is of no use until you add a primary or secondary name to it. By adding a primary or secondary colour word to your description lets you know what colour your dealing with.

Another Example: Pink is not a colour. It is a word to describe a red with white added to it. Fuchsia, violet, magenta, grey, are all descriptive words. There is no such thing as grey! Grey is always a dull version of some colour.

So remember! When you describe your colour correctly, you will know how to mix it. Say things like... 

Green Gray or Purple Gray or Blue Gray (as in a rainy New York skyline). You can say "New York Skyline Blue" to describe it but to MIX it you must actually state the colour you want to make. Blue Gray.

Some hues tread a fine line between two colours, but when you begin with a clear description, the subtlety will fall into place as you refine your mixture. It takes time to develop a sense for identifying colour correctly but with persistent effort you will begin to see colours with a finer and finer sensibility and clarity.

To review - You must first identify the colour you want to make and describe it as one of the six. After that...

2. Bias

Identify the bias in the colour you want to make. 

Here is the tricky part. Once you have identified and described the colour, you must also identify its bias. Each of the six colours mentioned above has a bias (tendency). Every colour on your palette has a colour bias. Colour bias is the colour's tendency toward one end of the spectrum or the other.

Primary: Red is never just a red. It’s either a blue red (tending toward purple) or a yellow red (tending toward orange).

Secondary: Purple is never just a purple. It is a purple leaning to the red side or a purple leaning to the blue side.

By identifying the tendency of the colour you want to make helps you choose the suitable colours that you need make that mixture. Remember: The colours you’re using in your mixture and the colour you’re trying to make have tendencies. By identifying both you will have a much easier time getting the colour you’re looking for.

EXAMPLE: Mixing Purple (blue+red)

Ask yourself: Is it a blue-purple (violet), or a red-purple (magenta)? 

Choose the right blue:

If it’s a blue-purple you want to pick an Ultramarine Blue because it has a red tendency, rather than a Cerulean Blue which has a green tendency. If you don’t, you will mix mud because green is the opposite of red and they will fight.

Choosing the right red:

If it’s a red-purple you want to pick a red with a blue tendency like Alizarine or Quinacridone Rose rather than an orange red like Cadmium Red Light or Naphthol Red because the orange tendency will conflict with the blue. 

3. Identify the Value

Take a deep breath, the hard work is done. This step is easy.

Is the colour you want: Light, Medium or Dark?

This determines how much white or how much of the darker colour (not black) you need to use in your mixture.

• Here is an article I wrote about Identifying and Painting Values Accurately.

4. Identify the Chroma

This final step is also easy.

Is the colour you want: Bright, Medium or Dull?

You can dull down the nature of any colour by adding it’s opposite to the mixture. If you want to dull down a purple mixture, add yellow to it. Done.

Bob’s your Uncle! You have the colour you’re looking for. All that’s left is a bit of tweaking, which by this point should be easy to identify.

Tips to remember:

• Always mix your Value before Chroma or your colour will be chalky.
• Keep your brushes clean and have lots of unsullied space on your palette to achieve accurate mixes.
• For a fresher look don’t over mix your colours on the palette, let them hit the canvas or paper just slightly under-mixed.

BONUS TIP:

Note about the limited palette of Anders Zorn. 

Having too many colours on you palette and not knowing what they do is a serious obstacle for any painter. Keep it simple! It’s amazing what you can do with limited colours. Anders Zorn is famous for his limited palette and often using only 4 colours to paint his incredible masterpieces.

Andes Zorn palette (using today's equivalents) would include: Ivory Black; Titanium White; Cadmium Red Light or Naphthol Red; Yellow Ochre.

Another benefit to using a limited palette is that it brings a distinct harmony to your painting.

Keep those brushes swinging and let me know if you have any questions. It’s my job to help you be the greatest artist you can be.

Your friend in art,

Doug

I know this can be tedious work. It's the nasty side of art business. But if you treat it as professionaly as you treat your painting, you're sure to score some gigs, make some sales, perhaps even find representation with a gallery. 

Keep those brushes swinging!

Your friend in art,

Doug

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