Posts tagged ‘winter’
You never know …
Art is unpredictable. Planning doesn’t always work, at least not the way you think it will. Trying to copy an earlier work, but bigger, often doesn’t work, at least not the way you think it will. You never know …
My most recent painting is a perfect case in point.
The final painting, Hush, is acrylic on raw canvas, 24×20. It conveys the quiet, peaceful solitude I initially wanted to combat the noisy, chaotic world we live in. But how I got to it …
I planned it, starting with four simple sketches. It took four because the first three compositions just didn’t cut it.
Based on the fourth composition, I decided to paint a spare winter scene on a 20×20 raw canvas I just happened to have available.
It did look like winter, but the “sky” was too pink, and I just couldn’t see adding the trees. Converting it into a purely abstract painting was a possibility, but then I made a mistake and couldn’t see how to fix it (given how unforgiving watered down acrylic on raw canvas is). Also, the square format didn’t work so well with my chosen composition. So its immediate future was going to include several coats of gesso as preparation for a completely different painting.
Finally, I started on a new, smaller (7×5) raw canvas, careful not to make the sky too pink. And I went back to the brownish (rather than bluish grey) land/lakeshore of my earlier sketch. The last step was to add the trees.
Yeah, finally something I liked. And the vertical format worked. So two paintings later, I had something that might be worth yet another try.
My final painting, Hush, contained one, last change: making the trees on the right much larger and more hard edged.
So, four sketches before I had a workable composition. And three tries after that before I had a painting I really liked. And the things that went wrong, I wasn’t able to predict. You never know … until you try it.
Hip, Hip, Hooray
The Art Students League had a very successful annual Holiday Sale and, in the first three days of the sale, three of my paintings sold (along with many, many other artists’ paintings, sculptures, collages, etc.) Hip, Hip, Hooray!
So, here are my three paintings that sold…
- Any Second Now. 18×24 Acrylic. Although this was always going to be about a stormy, windy day on the water, it took roughly 6 months to finish because it kept changing. First I had to redo the sky and then, of course, the water needed to change. Every time one thing changed, something else had to change. I thought it would never end. (painting follows)
2. Peaceful. 16×20. Acrylic on raw canvas. I loved the way this painting really did capture my childhood memories of dark Canadian winter evenings. It was cold and quiet and peaceful; nothing moved. I was alone with the town behind me and nothing but the snow and the silence ahead. (painting follows)
3. Perilous. 16×20. Acrylic. Painted on top of a canvas someone else had thrown away, I had nothing to lose. I gessoed over it and just started in. It was an adventure start to finish, so I guess it’s no accident that it reminds me of the white-water rafting I used to do long ago. I miss that fun adrenalin rush. (painting follows)
I’m still in a wintry mood
Well, I won’t be able to paint winter landscapes when we’re in the middle of spring and it’s hot outside. So I’m kinda happy that we’ve got more wintry weather coming. Because, for some reason, I’m still in a wintry mood.
So my winter series continues, albeit with slightly larger canvases: 10×10. That’s still pretty small as paintings go, but it’s a good size for me to continue my experiment painting winter (snowy) scenes with a palette knife on gessoed canvases. I’ve now painted 12, if you count the ones I’ve painted over. So far I’ve painted over two, because I didn’t like the way they turned out and I didn’t know how to fix them. If I can fix whatever bothers me, then I simply post the final version under “Experiments.” What you are seeing in this blog is the initial version, before whatever corrections might be needed. Sometimes only a minor fix is needed, but I have to live with them for awhile, before I’m sure.
What I love about winter is how stark everything is, how extreme. And a minimalist composition and using a palette knife make it happen.
For some reason, the snow looks a lot more beigey here than in the actual painting (it is white). Guess I’ll have to take another picture before loading up to “Experiments.” But I like the composition.
Winter 11 has already had a lot of changes. So I think this one is done. But, of course, I could change my mind next week before I put it into “Experiments.”
With Winter 12, I wanted a darker sky with a little of the ground showing through the snow. It’s going to have to grow on me though. Not sure what to do with it, if anything. Again, the snow doesn’t look as white here as it does in the painting. I’m going to have to really rethink the way I photograph these.
To be continued… I’m still in a wintry mood and more winter weather is coming.
I’m stilll painting Winter
The weather has warmed up (positively balmy lately), but I’m still painting Winter. Something about the stark contrasts of winter lends itself to experiments. The composition is an experiment. Applying acrylic with a palette knife on mini (6×6) gessoed canvas is certainly an experiment (for me). And experiments are fun. No impossible to meet expectations, just “let’s see what this will look like.”
And if you don’t like it, you just gesso over it and start again. Waste not want not. Now Winter 3 is Winter 8. The snow is dirtier but it’s definitely still winter.
It’s still winter
The weather outside has mellowed a little, but I continue to paint these simplified winter scenes on mini (6×6) canvases with a palette knife. In my head it’s still winter.
Winter 5 is fascinating to me. Seen up close it’s just a mess of pale colors and raised paint ridges. When you pull back a little it becomes an abstracted winter scene. There are bands of clouds in the sky, trees and even a path or two. At the time I painted it, my nose was about a foot from the painting and yet I was painting the scene you can only really “see” from a distance.
In Winter 6, I simplified the colors, modified one of my favorite trees a little and placed the land at an angle. I’m starting to like the way my shaky hands and the palette knife create the texture.
I brought back the yellow oxide for the clouds just over the top of the hill, but now that I re-examine it, Winter 7 doesn’t look like much of anything real. It’s the most abstracted of these mini paintings so far. For years, I struggled to abstract from the model, or from a real scene. Here it just happened.
And last but not least, Winter 8 is a little more representational, but still pretty abstract.
So with all of these Winter minis, I couldn’t create what I was trying to (smooth expanses of snow with muted, vague shapes). The palette knife made that unrealistic. Instead, I’ve created mini abstract paintings with a lot of texture. And I like them — some more than others — but I like them.
But in my head, it’s still winter, so I think I’ll try to recreate these scenes using my preferred acrylic on raw canvas. To be continued…
Crossroads, sorta
Well, this is my eighth Crossroads painting, sorta. Somehow, while I was making the umpteenth change to what was a relatively uninspired and not terribly effective painting, it morphed into something very different. Quieter, less chaotic. It reminds me of how Frank O’Cain at the Art Students League says we should let the painting tell us what it needs.
Crossroads VIII 14×11 Acrylic on Yupo $725
Last year I tried (unsuccessfully, I might add) to paint the ice floating on the Harlem and Hudson rivers at Spuyten Duyvil one winter evening. I think I just figured out how. Better late than never.
Winter Rocks wins First Place for Watercolor
My painting, Winter Rocks, won First Place for Watercolor at the Vintage Artists Gallery’s 36th Annual Art Show.
Winter Rocks, 15 x 11.5, $750
Winter Rocks is a reflection of the brutally cold winter we experienced this year in New York. After a snow, the craggy rocks in Riverdale look like they could be in the Rockies, or the Alps. I love the fact that you really can’t tell the scale.
The exhibit will be open weekdays from 9:00 – 4:30 until June 16. The gallery is located at 2600 Netherland Avenue, Bronx, NY 10463; 718-884-5900.
Reflected Glory
My view of Spuyten Duyvil and sunsets over the Hudson River and the Palisades is often nothing short of spectacular…but not always. The reflected glory of the winter sun in the cold Spuyten Duyvil waters where the Harlem River and the Hudson River meet can vary from steely grey to a bright vibrant orange red, depending on the weather.
This particular painting of that reflected glory actually started with my memory of the sky reflected in the waters off Iceland. To the complicated movement of that water I added the colors I’ve been seeing out my window this winter: peach, a little green and many shades of winter’s blue.
Reflected Glory
I’ve done brighter paintings based on the Breiđafjörđur waters (there is a lot of green in All the Sky’s a Stage, deeper colors in Ebb and Flow, and in Breiđafjörđur the blues are cleaner), but Reflected Glory really is a winter painting.
Winter Rocks
I love the winter and especially the snow and the way it changes how everything looks. Winter rocks.
2011 in New York City must have been a really snowy winter, because I painted a lot of semi-representational paintings of snow on the craggy rocks along the West Side Highway around 145th Street. I loved that you couldn’t really tell the scale. It could have been a painting of the Alps or Rockies. In fact, I almost called this one, Manhattan Alps V.
City Snow V, 14 x 10, $700
This year, we didn’t have as much snow as last year (we are not Boston) but it was much colder. So it was a real Winter, with a capital W. Well, winter still rocks. I love the way the snow on the top of the rocks makes patterns. Winter rocks. And this is Winter Rocks.
Winter Rocks, 15 x 11.5, $750
Born in Canada. Still a Canadian in the winter under all the layers of down. Winter rocks.
Evolution of a painting
My painting process, especially if it is a representational painting (one where you recognize the subject), usually involves a series of light washes (often many of them) to create a painting with real depth and intensity. And there are many adjustments along the way as the painting speaks to me and tells me what it needs.
I spent the recent Christmas holidays visiting my brother in Cooperstown in upstate New York. I described my visit and showed two of my quick sketches in my previous blog. It’s taken me this long to create a painting from one of those sketches.
This was the initial wash:
Winter v1
You can see the light pencil sketch — not very detailed — and the preliminary light washes, blue for the snow shadows and sky and blue-green for the trees and far mountains.
Winter v2
Here I’ve left the sky and snow shadows alone and focussed on the trees and distant mountain.
Winter v3
Here I’ve added some of the tree trunks and started to indicate the tree branches.
Lots still to do: make the far trees stand out from the further mountains, continue to define the midground trees and, most importantly, expand the snow shadows. Finally, I added purple to the trees and shadows in spots and then the occasional stroke of red. The last thing, even after I put my name at the bottom, was to add the two hawks cruising in the far sky.
So here is the final painting: Cooperstown Winter.
Cooperstown Winter
It really does convey the isolation and beauty of winter in Cooperstown.
Ruth Hurd | BLOG 