Spring will soon be here and the plein air season will stretch out before us with tantalizing visions of days spent in the field painting nature. Unfortunately for many, the reality never quite matches up to our hopes and expectations. We come home tired, frustrated and disappointed in the day’s efforts. Why? Because painting outdoors […]
Where To Look for Shifts in Color Temperature
So, now we know that color temperature is an important attribute of color, and that seeing and painting those shifts will add quality to our paintings. But, where do we look for them?Over the many years that I studied with Ned Jacob, he rarely answered my questions directly. Usually, he would say enigmatic things like […]
Let it Snow!
Many of us are facing bitter winter weather just now. So, it seemed an appropriate time to talk about…painting snow! Two of the main concepts to keep in mind when painting snow are value and color temperature. When painting a light, highly reflective surface like snow we are hampered by the value limitations of our […]
Painting the Night
Painting the moonlit landscape has challenged artists for centuries. Depictions of night time motifs tend to be as much about the ideas we have about the night as they are about what we actually see. As Thoreau said, “the night is a different country” and the shifts in perception that occur in a dimly lit […]
What is Tonalism? Part I
In the decade following the Civil War, America came to terms with its great loss–both of a generation of young men, and the feeling of high spirited nationalistic pride and belief in itself as the chosen land and the chosen people of God’s creation. The societal underpinnings of religious faith were likewise shaken. The operatic creations […]
The Art of the Garden
In the late 19th and early 20th century the “Garden Movement” in America was greatly influenced by French Impressionist paintings. The move to the suburbs by the middle classes also encouraged this new interest in gardening, and the “American garden”, not as formal as the English or Italian gardens of the Gilded Age, became popular. […]