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Improve Your Paintings
Hey friend, I want to share with you something that has made a lasting impact on me as an artist – Making Studies. I not only want to make the case for why you should consider doing this, but also give you some practical steps to get the ball rolling including a discussion on materials. Ready? Lets GO!
Old Masters & The secret to success as an artist…
When I first started out, I began accumulating things I found inspiring, clippings from books and magazines, downloaded material and I pinned them to my board. They were virtually all old masters. I noticed that they were all consistently great. Granted, we probably don’t see everything that Sargent’s Mom pinned to the refrigerator, but it’s hard to discount the consistent level of greatness that we see in the old masters. What was it that made them so darn GOOD?
I started to pick up on things they were doing, you can catch glimpses from old studio shots and even in their bios. Whether sketching in the field, working EN Plein Air, or making small paintings in the studio, we’re left with a series of clues towards their methods. It dawned on me. They were so good, they produced outstanding work consistently. Then I thought: “Success leaves Clues, if you want what they got you gotta do what they did!”
Here we can catch a glimpse of Charles F. Goldie in his studio. He had multiple studies up on the wall, informing larger works.
Ah ha! I realised that great paintings don’t just happen, they’re planned! Each one of my heroes from Auchenbach to Zorn, planned, and created copious amounts of studies. Sure, maybe not every work had an exact map, shape by shape and point by point, but a study nonetheless. This was one thing I missed early on and consequently I left a lot of opportunities on the table, and ended up engaged in abortive work. Ouch.
Could it be that having some sort of roadmap for the project ahead could result in better work?
Painting With Hindsight
We’ve all been there; you’re working on a piece and you notice the head needed to move right, or the waterfall is too small. Perhaps the trees could have been thinned, or the waves toned down a little. There you have it, a missed opportunity. Sure, you know it now, as you look at your finished work, but if only you could have realised that before…
You’ve no doubt heard the expression “everyone has 20/20 vision in hindsight”. Hindsight gives us clarity. After the dust has settled we see clearly things we could have done better or avoided. Sure, that’s all well and good, but it’s in the past now, so what gives?
Finding a Subject
Don’t muck around just bloomin paint it! We’re probably similar in the way that we want to paint the best scene possible, perfect composition and balance of elements…Right? The trouble is you can spend AGES looking for that perfect subject and your wasting valuable painting time, straight up.
My recommendation is you find ONE THING you love about a scene and go from there. Listen to that internal dialogue and hear yourself say “Oh, that looks cool”. That’s your cue to get out the easel. Just bloomin’ paint it!
Now I don’t know how true this is, but it sounds good. I’ve heard that Sargent would just whip out his easel the moment he stepped onto location and paint what first struck him, no frissin’ around. He just got on with it. Well, whether it’s true or not, it sounds good to me! So I’ve adopted the same approach. Sargent’s paintings are an inspiration to those who are dedicated to plein air. His work captures a freshness of the scene, the raw essence of the places that inspired him. I’m struck by the simplicity of his plein air images.
Hear me out, painting with hindsight is possible. I now know the road ahead. How? I’ve been there before! This is not to say it’s perfect, and there’s not anything I could improve upon. Far from it. It’s that everything I do is a true representation of the best I have within me, at any given moment. A simple plan helps draw this out of me, and I’m convinced it can do the same for you.
There is another thing that making a plan can do for you, let’s talk about it.
Thinking in Series or Bodies of Work
Now, I don’t know about you, but I like to look at my work as a whole body, not just an isolated piece. When I plan my paintings, I plan in series. This allows me to get a snapshot of an entire body of work and think in terms of themes.
Every work in a particular series goes up on a sheet of linen, pre-primed and taped off at the boundaries. I can even see how a show can hang together. This is the ultimate bird’s eye view. I’ll even try to separate works into unique sheets – waves on this one, New Zealand landscapes on that one and Italy over on that one.
Embrace the Grind
This may strike you as a lot of work for no real reward. Why go to all the trouble? Again, success leaves clues. I thought long and hard about the sacrifice and time the masters poured into their endeavours and vowed I would try to do the same. Yes it’s a bunch of work, but it’s about embracing that fact and learning to love the grind.
Let’s chuck in another hero, here’s Sorolla’s studio. Epic huh? Get a load of those studies!
Shooting From the Hip
Here’s how I approach my color studies – I’ll take my reference and try to find one unique image and then I’ll “shoot from the hip”. As the expression suggests, and inspired by slick gun slingers in the wild west, this is a gut reaction and swift expression reacting to the imagery you see in the reference. I know I’m going to make a mistake, but that’s okay!
I try not to over-analyse, measure, calculate or over think. My goal is just to get the idea down. This is pure creativity, reacting to the imagery that inspires the given study.
Here’s an example – Notice how the painting is actually quite different to the image?
Okay, I know what you’re thinking: “I thought you just said to plan? So why not measure? Aren’t you contradicting yourself here, Tisch?”
Hear me out: Painters gotta paint right? We have to feel and flow into that creative space and act upon the spark that sets us alight. I save all that freedom for THIS process, not when I’m on the big one. This here is the first step towards that big EPIC piece. This informs the final version and in the step between I can make adjustments (but that’s the subject of another blog post).
So I went ahead and made my “Rocky Mountain Amphitheatre” piece even bigger. You’ll notice a few changes, like the flowing water in the foreground. Imagine painting over that entire area if I got the good idea after already covering the area in paint!
I don’t know about you but, I have a load of linen lying around from all of the offcuts, left over from the stretching process. This is what I’m using to make my studies. I then take an MDF board, attach my mounting blocks for my wall easel, and I tape the linen directly to the surface, making sure there are no air pockets between the board and linen.
From here, I tape my individual borders of each study, and every study is separated by the width of masking tape. For the record, I love the 20mm masking tape for this. We don’t need a huge separation between each study.
Then I coat the linen with an imprimatura. Often the linen is too stark white and it can be difficult to overcome. I love the imprimatura as it tones down the canvas and adds a warm glow tying everything in the painting together. I bush this in, and then wipe it off. This particular process is worthy of another blog entry, me thinks.
Then I get to work. The imprimatura is dry the next day, by the time I lay in my first strokes. These little studies are only around 10×15 cms – making them achievable within 2-3 hours of concentration.
Ready to Sky Rocket your Oil Painting?
So there you have it. Making color studies has completely transformed my process and I’ve seen massive improvements at the easel as a result of this vital planning step. Now, you may still need to map out your composition and measure particular elements, we can talk about that in another post, but I hope this has been as helpful for you as it’s helped me. I’ve even got a color studies series on Tisch Academy.
Thanks for reading my friend, catch you in the next blog!
Tisch
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One Response
Finding a Subject
Don’t muck around just bloomin paint it! We’re probably similar in the way that we want to paint the best scene possible, perfect composition and balance of elements…Right? The trouble is you can spend AGES looking for that perfect subject and your wasting valuable painting time, straight up.
I laughed because I will walk around for 2 hrs when searching for “the perfect” plein air subject haha! Then the sun goes down and I’m chasing the light.