| Author | Message | ||
  George Unregistered guest |
Bill, oh yes! A tree can be a single large shape of color and value, or multiple medium sized shapes of the various leaf clusters, or a highly detailed illustration of the full tree showing many individual leaves. I’ve done them all at one time or another. A tree can also vary depending on; one’s artistic style, relation of the tree to the overall scene, desired mood, size of the painting and other personal preferences. Speaking of trees, my personal belief is that if you only look at a tree in one way, you will never see its full potential. Therefore I try never to paint a tree the same way twice. | ||
Whitewatercolor Member Username: Whitewatercolor Post Number: 40 Registered: 10-2006 |
Trees as masses or groups are quite often the darkest value of my paintings also, when the painting is a landscape. | ||
Bill Unregistered guest |
Some were speaking of values earlier. I often use tree masses in landscapes (dark masses) as my dark value area. Often I place them where they seem to balance the value pattern of to offset the center of interest. I do not paint the leaves, simply the masses. Does any one else among us use this approach? | ||
George |
One more note about squinting – how much (degree to which) you should squint depends on your painting style (degree of detailed realism you wish to show). | ||
George |
I don’t know much about the card with a hole in it as I’ve never used it, but I can say a bit more about squinting. I don’t squint these days, perhaps because my eyes are starting to go bad and everything now looks like it did when I was younger and would squint. But, when I did use squinting the value to me was that it eliminated a lot of the minor detail that interfered with my seeing the bigger forms. Sometimes all the millions of little details the eye picks up are mind boggling and stand in the way of making sense of the larger and more important forms. For example; when looking at a brick wall I would think; how do I deal with all that brick? Then I would squint and see that all the bricks were really just a large flat plane of red earth color. Squinting can also help to reduce everything to only the larger areas of color or value because the minor (less dominate) colors and values fade away. | ||
rekhasharma |
So are you saying that you are trying to defocus your eyes to infinity as you do for Magic Eye? Further advice will be enormously helpful | ||
marie |
George is right. Color can really confuse one's value perception. Monochrome studies are good. Also, Ultramarine blue, raw sienna, and burnt sienna make a good combination when you want to emphasize value. | ||
marie |
Try to do the opposite of a pinhole effect. When you squint, you want to look for the big patterns of light and dark. Eliminate the details. Squint to look at the big shapes, not to zoom in on a particular area. Also, I would use a gray card instead of a black card. Everything is going to look light against a black card. | ||
George |
Rekhasharma, I don’t paint still life or interior scenes so I’m not the best one to give you any advice, but I can offer one tip that I would assume is useful for anyone wanting to paint better values. Try a black and white study. The colors you mix can sometimes interfere with seeing the value composition. A few black and white studies can help a beginner to better see value changes. | ||
rekhasharma |
"Squinting is good. I suppose it simplifies the shapes and colors" Marie, I have seen Charles Reid do this on his videos and I tried it unsuccessfully. If you are suggesting I create a pinhole type effect I have tried that too by punching a 1/4cm hole in a black card. Can't get my head around that. Can you elaborate because I think it is the key tool for judging values. | ||
marie |
Rekhasharma, that's a good question. Judging values can be challenging -- the brain can play all kinds of tricks on you. I'm still learning. Other folks may have better ideas, but I will share a few things that work for me. * Squinting is good. I suppose it simplifies the shapes and colors. * I think of values as relative, not absolute. So, I'll ask myself where's my lightest light, where's my darkest dark, and where's a middle value. Then I pick another spot and ask myself -- is the area lighter or darker than my middle value? I keep going until I get impatient and jump in with the painting. I don't try to assign an absolute value -- e.g. "this is value #4." * Isolate your values. A middle value on a dark surface will appear lighter than the same middle value on a light surface. One useful trick is to get a range of gray paint swatches from your local hardware or home improvement store. Punch a hole in each swatch, and then hold it up to the area you are trying to judge. Also, you can make a circle with your index finger and thumb to get a quick read on a value. * Get the big areas first. Look for big areas of light and dark before you get into the details. * When an object is the one color, the lightest part of a shadow is always darker that the darkest area in the light. * Most shadows have some reflected into them. Shadows are dark but not black. | ||
rekhasharma |
On the subject of values can anyone tell me how to recognise values of objects indoors. I find it very difficult to demarcate the value boundaries and sometimes the shadows | ||
George |
Hi Rekhasharma, the idea of course is to teach the eye to see these geometric value patterns while on location. The eye can see more than the camera can (I don’t own a camera). And, the human mind can reduce the complexity of nature to simple patterns better than a camera and computer can. If I’m in the field and want to show someone these kinds of value patterns I use a pencil and sheet of paper to sketch them. I guess I’m saying; instead of carrying a laptop, carry a pencil and paper into the field. It’s the best way to teach the mind to see. | ||
marie |
Thanks, George. I will try to follow the geometry on the next trip out. I went out this afternoon, and did 3 more pictures. I haven't had a chance to photograph them yet. Rekhasharma, taking a laptop out might be overkill, but some digital cameras have a black and white preview mode that is helpful for judging value. I have a tiny Casio with a b&w mode. I haven't used it on any of my plein air expeditions yet, but I have used it in figure groups. (Many apologies if I have already mentioned this.) | ||
rekhasharma |
This is a very clever way to assess values, George. Are you suggesting that one carries their laptop when working outdoors so you could get an instantaneous projection of how to assign values. | ||
George |
The software on this site stinks! I'll try again! Also note that the line in this image may be the overlap of two trees (hard to see).  | ||
George |
In this image I’ve zoomed in on the largest clump to show the geometry of the line between the dark and light portions of the clump. Let your brush flow in the pattern formed by this line. Note that the geometry of this line between light and dark areas is different on different types of trees. Hope this helps! |image{geo.jpg} | ||
George |
Ah heck, this worked a week ago. I'll try again!  | ||
George |
I'll try again. |image{clumps.jpg} | ||
George |
Marie, I took your photo and outlined the major clumps of branches (that I talked about in an earlier post). I hope it helps. |image {clumps.jpg} | ||
George |
Marie, Good improvements!! The variations in form are beginning to show up and the colors are much richer and truer to the season. | ||
marie |
The weather wasn't right for much outdoor work this weekend. However, I did get out briefly Friday afternoon for some tree practice. Nothing but trees on this effort.    I'm feeling reasonably comfortable when I can make sense of the structure of the tree, but the more complex shapes still confuse me. For whatever it's worth, I took pictures of the last two trees so you can get an idea of what the actual trees looked like.   Eventually, I'll make sense of all this. | ||
Anonymous Painter |
When I made up half-pans to replace the ones in my Cotman Field Kit, I added a tiny amount of glycerine (from a drug store) and a tiny amount of honey. The amount is considerably less than a 'drop.' Both were picked up on a toothpick & then stirred into the tube paint as the toothpick packed the paint into the corners of the pan. I'm not having any trouble with my W/N cerulean after treating it this way. See if you can limit yourself to seeing a single tree, and then find the 'planes' of that tree. They might run horizontally, or diagonally, or in oval clumps... If you can find the structure in this way, stamping with the sponge can duplicate this. Your foliage is looking better, imo! | ||
Robert |
Though I haven't been painting this way lately, for muted realistic foliage like you are painting I usually rely on lemon yellow, cerulean blue, ultramarine , raw sienna and raw umber (all Maimeri except for ultramarine which is prismacolor) for a variety of greens. | ||
Robert |
I used Green Gold as a yellow with blues to mix greens (Got the advice from handprint, BTW). It is one of many alternatives, of course. It depends on the effect you are after. Currently I am trying some really brilliant greens by using Daler Rowney Perm. Yellow (Quinopthalone yellow-unique to DR) and DR Hooker's Green Lt. These are not natural looking, but fit into a bright color design--brilliant and fresh. There are so many approaches to this stuff it boggles the mind. | ||
marie |
Thanks for the suggestions. I have always been a little afraid of thalo green. It's so strong! However, I will give it a try on the next trip out. Hopefully, I'll get out briefly tomorrow afternoon because they're predicting rain later in the weekend. George, the montage of the two pictures is very interesting. It didn't occur to me until I saw the altered picture that both of the originals were done facing in the same direction at the same time of day. Originally, I had a lot more variation in the foliage of the urn picture. In fact, I had so much variation that it was chaotic. I got frustrated and painted over the entire left side with a 2" brush. Robert and Sid, when you use green gold, do you use it as a substitute for a primary yellow (e.g. - PY 154, PY97, or a cadmium), or do you use it in addition to a primary yellow? | ||
Robert |
The way I learned to mix greens is similar to Sid's suggestion. Start with Pthalo green--add one of the earths--raw sienna, br. sienns, raw umber, bt, umber, venetian or light red and viola, excellent greens. Green Gold substituted for yellow in mixing works great, as Sid mention--I used daler Rowney green gold. | ||
George |
Bye the way, I did nothing but cut and paste from Marie’s paintings. No special enhancements at all. I did try to make the cut and paste fit a compositional scheme. I’ll post the compositional scheme here, in case you don’t see it.  | ||
George |
Of course the two paintings had different lighting and tonalities, but the beginning of a harmony between the architectural and natural forms is what I’m trying to point out. | ||
George |
I'll try again!  | ||
George |
Sid, thanks! After painting en plein air for a few years these things start to jump out at you. Marie, I agree that the bronze/verdigris urn was one of your best architectural forms. Just to show you how close you are to your goal, I took your urn and pasted it onto your latest effort with trees. I’ll post it here, if I can figure out how to post an image. | ||
Sid |
I am using M. Graham paints almost exclusively (except for W/N R. sienna and B. sienna.). I don't have any trouble using them either indoors or outside. However. I live in Montana where humidities in summer run under 20 percent! That might be the difference. I add new paint to my field palette and let it dry overnight. The next day they have set sufficiently to travel well. Marie: You might try greens made from either Pthalo Green or Pthallo Blue. These are very strong paints alone but mixed with Raw Sienna, Perm. Orange, and Burnt Sienna they make nice "forest" greens. Particularly for pines, firs, spruces, etc. Also, Robert once recommended mixing greens by starting with Green Gold (not sure what brand). I tried it and it does make neat greens. George: I was a forester before I retired to be an artist. Your description of tree/forest color variations over the season was excellent. Better than most painting books! | ||
Robert |
A couple of other ideas about paint-- Maimeri Indigo is a very unique color, far from the other indigos and perfectly matches the darkest shadow areas in foliage. It is really good for this. I also mix my dark greens from pthalo green plus venetian red. | ||
Robert |
Actually, I rechecked,The maimeri Cerulean rewets fine--it's the Maimeri earths that don't release well when dry. The maimeri Cerulean is less green and makes mixing a dream--very little granulation. (Same hue as M. Graham cerulean). The Prismacolor is closer in hue to W/N. | ||
Robert |
I suggest Prismacolor (or Grumbacher Finest) Cerulean and Prismacolor (or Grumbacher Finest) Ultramarine. They rewet easily for me and are the lovely concentrated shades to boot, IMHO. BTW Rembrandt and Maimeri are hard to rewet. However, currently I have been working only with fresh colors so it is not an issue for me. M. Graham of course doesn't dry out because it stays gooey and stickey with honey. | ||
marie |
I'm using the W/N raw sienna, which is pretty saturated. I'll try your suggestion on the greener shades of ultramarine. I'm going to stay away from the M. Graham though. Even though I am a huge fan of M. Graham paints for indoor work, I have found that it doesn't dry in the pans and I always wind up with the the M. Graham paints oozing all over the other paints. I have some W/N cerulean in my paint box, but I'm find that it dries out too much, and I keep fighting to get it wet enough to work with. I usually give up and switch over to cobalt blue. Can you recommend a brand of cerulean that behaves well in pans? | ||
Robert |
Going to a place of death to render the beauty of life. Very ennobling! | ||
Robert |
You also might benefit from using prismacolor ultramarine (not french ultramarine), daler rowney permanent blue, m. graham ultramarine, or winsor newton ultramarine green shade. These tend to mix slightly greener than conventional french ultramarine and granulate less. I've found they make it easier to get the right landscape color. | ||
Robert |
Marie --I often use a similar palette for plein air work when I want to replicate nature's colors. I tend to use cerulean blue also to green things up. I also think the choice of raw sienna is crucial. Some are yellower and brighter and make the mixes greener. | ||
marie |
Robert, George, and Eugene, and everybody. The suggestions are greatly appreciated. Please keep the suggestions coming. | ||
marie |
Hi Robert, I highly recommend painting in cemeteries. There's a variety of subjects, and it's a great place to study different lighting on white surfaces. It has been a tremendous learning experience for me. Rekhasharma, at this stage I'm trying to concentrate more on value than on color. I'll probably tinker with color some more after I get a better sense of values and shapes. My palette is relatively simple. In the first group of paintings, I was using raw sienna, cobalt blue, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and ultramarine violet. In the second group, I expanded my palette to include thalo turquoise (PB16) and winsor yellow (PY 154). There are also some occasional touches of quinacridone rose, cadmium red, and cerulean blue. A few things I have learned: Raw sienna and cobalt blue work really well for grass. (some of the photographs don't do it justice). I'm not happy with the darker greens that I'm using for trees. I tried ultramarine blue with raw sienna, which was kind of non-descript. Then, I tried thalo turquoise and burnt sienna, which I liked better but I'm still not entirely happy with it. Cobalt blue, sometimes with a little ultramarine blue or violet, is great for skies. Skies tend to become lighter and warmer (more raw sienna or quinacridone rose) as they approach the horizon. With the statues and buildings, I probably exaggerate what I see. Sometimes I try to match the color of the shadows with the light that I think is reflected into the shadow. If I think the light is coming from the sky, I lean toward violet or blue. If I think the reflected light is coming from the ground, I lean toward raw sienna and burnt sienna. And then sometimes I reverse the pattern for no good reason. Also, sometimes I will lean the lighter shadows toward raw sienna and the darker shadows toward violet/blue. With the stone lion, I painted the core shadows in raw sienna and the cast shadows in ultramarine violet. The stone lion was expecially challenging because I was sitting in blindingly full sun, and I couldn't judge any colors while I was working. The bronze/verdigris urn was one of the most accurate attempts at capturing the reflected light in a shadow (even though I need to crop off the entire left side of the painting). The greenish verdigris from the urn was very evident in the shadowed tombstone behind it. | ||
Eugene |
MARIE a suggestion. look carefully at the silhouette of the tree. the big shape is usually more important than all the little variations within. simplify, simplify, simplify- it helps me! | ||
George |
Marie, that’s a big improvement. Good for you!! I’ll offer three suggestions, but if you find that I get too pushy with my suggestions, please tell me. I tend to have difficulty judging how much I should, and should not say, and it has gotten me in trouble in the past. So, please let me know if I go too far. First, the sponge is a good way to add texture, but as with any technique too much of it tends to look gimmicky. Second, trees have different colors in each of the seasons. These colors even change within a season. For example, trees in early summer are a cleaner and lighter green, but are more earth tinged in late summer (not to be confused with fall colors – they are different too). If you are not careful about the true (relatively speaking) colors, and include colors from different times of the year, then the seasonal unity (believability) of the painting becomes confused. The number of greens you can mix is enormous. Use the right ones for each season, and for each part of each season. Paint the colors you see in front of you. Third, you say that “The background was just a huge mass of dark green with lots of sky holes.” Every type of tree has its own structure and is good to learn these structures. The problem here is that you only see individual trees on a lawn in front of a house or in the middle of a cow pasture. Most trees are in groups. Groups of trees have a structure of their own depending on the types of individual trees in the group and the placement of the trees in the group. The solution for you is to study the subtle changes of value and color within what looks like a big wall of dark green. Also, walk around the group of trees to see the big three dimensional forms breaking out of that wall of green. These forms may not be visible from your painting spot, but need to be suggested. I'd love to see your next efforts. | ||
rekhasharma |
Marie, your paintings are beautiful and unique in their own way. How do you translate your observation to colour on your painting? | ||
Robert |
Hu Marie--I like the combination of sculpture and foliage and am inspired to seek out a cemetary to paint. Regarding the first attempt below, the tall thin trees (junipers?) might be rendered in a significantly lighter value to make them stand out against the background foliage (or perhaps visa versa). You are doing a good job. | ||
marie |
Thanks to everyone for the advice. George, I really appreciated the advice. I'm working on learning to observe the structure. So much green stuff! It's still a struggle for me to make sense of it. I suppose the best solution is to spend a lot of hours observing and practicing. I have done about 20 of these things now. We'll see how much progress I have made when I get to 100. Anonymous Painter, I tried a sea sponge last Sunday, and I think there's a lot of potential for it to work for me. I didn't entirely get what I wanted, but I saw enough possibilities to want to try it again. And thanks for the suggestion about the yahoo search. I'm going to try it as soon as I get a chance. I have also found a couple of books that are helpful. One is Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting. Although it's aimed at the oil painter, there's a lot of good information. The other is The Artistic Anatomy of Trees. Written by Rex Vicat Cole in 1915, it may be a little 19th century for many tastes, but I am finding that it's full of lots of good information. One more thing I have found is that occasionally, not always, a piece of wax comes in handy as a resist. Here are last Sunday's attempts. In the first one, I was really trying to concentrate on the trees and foliage, and the draftsmanship on the building suffered a bit.  In the second, I was experimenting with the sea sponge. The background was just a huge mass of dark green with lots of sky holes. I couldn't make any sense of the structure, but I liked the way the sponge gave the impression of light coming through.  In the last one, I don't know what I was doing. I think I was beginning to get tired. The area was sort of overgrown, with an egyptian-eclectic mausoleum on a hill off in the distance.  | ||
Anonymous Painter |
Marie, I use a sponge (small, natural, usually sea silk) for foliage, and find it is very, very quick and looks great. A couple ways to use it: As George said, most trees not only have a structure, but sub-structures within the structure. So sometimes I'll mix a variety of greens and 'paint' the sponge, darker on bottom & then lighter on top, then use the sponge to 'stamp' the foliage in repeating patterns. Sometimes I start this way, then use the sponge to take up single color either from a pan or a palette and finish structuring the clumps of foliage. You can stamp the sponge on slightly damp paper for a looser or more distant look. You can also slightly drag it to make the marks a bit looser or more pointed (depending how much moisture it's holding). Btw, if you want to make a blossoming tree or shrub (iwith white blossoms), the sponge with a little fresh green on just some parts of it is great. It leaves white spaces that really look natural. Just look carefully at the structure of foliage on the branches, then duplicate those shapes as you stamp. (Dogwoods look horizontal when blossoming, for example). On your other question: As usual, the most recognizable shape, for trees, too, is the silhouette. I like to go to Yahoo! (substitute search site of your choice), use their advanced search function, and specify to search Images (instead of the default Web). For keywords, I enter the species name, and then restrict the search to sites in edu domains. Most universities have botany departments with great information about typical bark, silhouette, and other features of each tree. :) | ||
George |
Marie, I hope you post your next effort. I’d love to see it because I am a big fan of plein air work, and you have a real talent for it. To answer your question, yes a study of the structure of trees is very important. I can’t recommend any resources for learning about trees because I have always gone to the source, the living tree, to study the structure of trees. However, I’m sure that resources can be found. Perhaps some of the other people who post here know of some resources for you to check out. If you don’t find any resources don’t give up, just study the real thing. Trees and foliage have as much natural architectural as buildings and figures do. You just need to look with an open eye, as the expression goes. Look for the big shapes, value changes, and color shifts. As in the human figure they will always conform to the base structure. | ||
marie |
Thanks, I'll give your suggestions a try. It may be next weekend before I get a chance to get out again. Would it be helpful to study the structure of trees? Can you recommend any resources for learning about trees? I like architecture and figures because I like to draw/paint structurally, but I don't understand anything about the how trees and foliage are put together. | ||
George |
Marie, you are a very talented artist. I love these. I can feel the atmosphere in them, and that is what makes a plein air work so different (better in my mind) from a painting done inside. I see the problem you are having with the trees. As I thought, it is not about the edges. You need to treat the trees in the same way that you treat the man made objects. You are painting (suggesting) the individual parts of the man made objects by subtle changes of value and color. Do this with the trees! Look for the sub forms within the trees. Trees have a clump of branches here and a clump of branches there. Each clump of branches has an exact structural relationship to all the other clumps of branches just as the stone lion has an exact structural relationship between its head and leg and tail. If you ignore these relationships in the trees they will not look like trees. This doesn’t mean that you need to be detailed. Not at all! Being detailed is putting in leaves and individual branches. Instead you want to suggest the form of a tree, as you have suggested the form of a stone lion. Sit for awhile and look for the dark and light patterns in the body of the tree (clumps of branches). You don’t need to do too much of this. Just do enough to make the man made objects and the natural objects look like they are done in the same style. I hope that helps! Let me know if you have another question. | ||
marie |
I haven't done a lot of plein air work, but the weather here has been so gorgeous that I haven't been able to stay inside. Here are some examples of what I have been doing. I did three of these yesterday and one last week. They're tighter than my usual work, which I attribute to my lack of experience with plein air and landscapes. I'm spending 1-2 hours on each one -- no fancy techniques, just a handful of brushes. And, yes, they're all pictures of a lovely cemetery not far from my house. It's a great place to practice because there's a wide variety of subjects -- trees, architecture, and sculpture -- in a relatively small area. I'm not trying to be morbid. I'm catching on most of it okay, except for the trees.     | ||
Robert |
http://www.melstabin.com/body_watercolor_paintings/GoldCanyonAZ/main.html Marie--Note the tree in upper left. Stabin paints the dark mountian into the dried yellow of the tree, softening some of the edge with a clear water laden brush. | ||
George |
Hi Marie, This is really hard to comment on without seeing the work that you are doing. In general terms however, the problem of edges is only one consideration when painting believable trees while working on location. You said that you want to capture some of the irregular edges of the tree without making it look labored. This would suggest that the solution would be to soften the edges. But, you also stated that when you do this too much, the tree loses its form. From this comment alone, my guess is that the problem is not the edges but the volume, or lack of volume, you have given to the tree. My advice would be to try and give the tree some value changes that encourage the viewer to see (sense) that the tree is a three dimensional object. As for the edges – my advice would be to do what most artists recommend be done with cloud forms, that is to use both some soft edges and some hard edges. Please understand that my comments (or any comments on this type of question) are to be adjusted according to the painting style the individual artist is using, the distance of the trees from the viewer, and the relationship of the trees to the subject of the painting (center of interest). Since I have no knowledge of how you might answer any of these issues, my answer to your question is general in nature. | ||
marie |
And thanks, Robert. I tried the Szabo charging technique this afternoon. It hasn't quite happened for me yet, but I'm going to keep trying. | ||
marie |
I bought the Szabo book a few weeks ago. I don't think of him as being especially loose or tight -- but I do find some of his work a little gimicky. | ||
Robert |
It's all relative. In the context of Marie's question, he sometimes charges wet paint into darker wet paint and lets that stand for lighter trees. Hardly tight. Perhaps calling him loose was unnecessary. He's szabo and has a szabo look to his paintings. What more can I say? | ||
Eric |
Eugene, I've never thought of Szabo as a tight painter. He wasn't the loosest either, maybe somewhere in the middle. | ||
Eugene |
Robert, I'm surprized that you mention Szabo. I think of him as a tight painter. He used a lot of masking and too many tricks for my taste. | ||
Robert |
More specifically --leave white paper for most of the color to be charged but end up with the top 1/3 or so brushed into the darker color of the farther trees. Another technique is to paint the lighter trees wet on dry and then quicky add the darker trees behind them wet on dry, letting the edges mingle. I'm a loose painter and these techniques are of the loose school. | ||
Robert |
By charging I mean brushing the light color wet in wet into the freshly painted darker color. | ||
Robert |
There are as many solutions as artists. Zoltan Szabo charges the light colors into the darker trees. Maimeri Indian Yellow and Perm. Lemon Yellow are full of ox gall and aid in this tremendously. | ||
marie |
I have been doing some plein air work the past few weeks, and trees confuse me. I get especially confused when there is a light colored tree in front of a darker mass of trees. I want to capture some of the irregular edges of the tree without making it look labored. If I soften the edges too much, the tree loses its form; if I keep hard edges, everything looks tired and overworked. Advice and tips are greatly appreciated. |
