Seeing and Painting

If you're a painter who has attended workshops or painted alongside others, you have probably noticed that when it is time to begin a picture, outdoors or in, the impulse is to grab a brush, dip it in paint, and get going. Time's a-wasting. Get some paint down. Make a statement and go from there.Maybe that's not the best approach. 

Years ago, a mentor gave me one of the best pieces of advice about painting: "Look more than you paint." That is, the actual work of painting (realism anyway) is done in the seeing. An artist should see the big shapes, patterns of light and dark (values), perspective in all of its forms (linear, atmospheric, etc.), colors and their complements, plus specific details and considerably more. If we think of it, that list can apply to a portrait, still life, landscape or whatever. Understanding and reviewing the properties of the subject is how the painter discovers how to begin. 

"Raccoon," oil on panel, 9x12

Painting "Raccoon," last Saturday, I stood along the bank, almost in the river, painting the lush woods along the Raccoon River in a familiar spot I've visited many times. It was early afternoon, so the shadows were more vertical than horizontal. I began as always with a thin wash of burnt sienna to establish the basic composition and value patterns. The greens of the trees and undergrowth looked quite dark in places, but here and there bright yellow-greens predominated. The opposite bank of the river bend juts into the frame, an ochre-red color of sand, debris and small rocks. That color, in shadow is echoed on the left side. To make this picture, I spent a great deal of time trying to see big color shapes--not objects but colors--and how they fitted together. The light-shadow patterns in the trees were particularly important. Looking at the water I made reflections that were in the pattern I saw in the water, then painted ripples and lighter sky reflections over the deeper darks. In the end, observation and painting took about an hour. Clearly this is a study and shouldn't be taken as an example of a finished studio work.

If one spends most of the time groping instead of studying, painting will take longer than necessary. So paradoxically the longer you look the quicker you can paint.