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Orchid and Chopsticks, the painting which got accepted into the 17th juried show of the IAPS, (the International Association of Pastel Societies, do go and see the fantastic entries and the awarded paintings, it is really a treat for the eyes, these artists are very good), so, yes, this painting is painted from real life, as are all my still-lifes. The human eye sees so very much more than what a camera does, even a good camera. In its turn, the good camera 'sees' and records so much more than what a printer can print, which is why printed photographs are not the best material to work from -- if you want to depict the effects of light. (Photographs work well for other manners of painting, but not for the impressionist tradition.)

This blog-post is for you who are interested in the whole painting process, and for you who are fascinated by this particular way of painting light and colour.

Nothing goes as planned, which this painting proves. I had originally thought to paint orchid blossoms against a light olive-green background, featuring only the flowers. As I was working with the set-up, the idea grew and changed. Light olive became a dark olive (note the old t-shirt serving as a backdrop). I had some laquered Japanese chopsticks I thought of, and then the idea of flirting with elements from the Far East coalesced in my mind. Not a painting trying to imitate styles of other cultures, but a little dalliance with it. Stone gardens, blossoms, bowls, chopsticks. As I was moving the elements around, I decided the composition would be basically circular, or oval to be more precise, so after this photo was taken, I changed some things. The main colour scheme is pinks and greens.



To the left, above, you see a little bit of the setup behind the painting on the easel. As you can see, the photo and the painting (which is not colour corrected for the yellow indoor lightbulb) don't look the same in colour. That is because a camera does not record colour right. The actual painting is much closer to reality than the photo of the items, I have witnesses!

A good tip is to always take a photo of your set-up. I studied variations on the screen of my computer, tried different crops, made changes virtually, which were then made in real life, by moving objects. For example, to get the right curve of the blossoms, which sagged by their own weight, I had to tie them up with a piece of string. Another reason for having a photo of your final setup is that catastrophies can happen. What if you knock it all down, accidentally? It is much easier to re-create it with the help of a recording.

Here's how I paint:

First I do a contour drawing, placing the elements of the composition on the picture plane. The 'action-oval' sits rather high, and the tablecloth dropping down the front serves as an area of little action, a space to rest.

1. (In picture below.) Usually, often, I work on white or a light creamy or sandy tone, in order to let the light reflect better. This time, as the painting was to have many dark areas, I chose to paint on a terracotta coloured piece of Pastelmat. The large masses are blocked in, in the colour of the light, and the colour of the weaker light in the shadows. All light masses get warm colours (direct light is warm), and all the shadow masses get cool colours (the reflected light of my working light is a cool daylight, therefore slightly bluish). These are not local colours (or rarely so), but the colours of light reflected off the surfaces. The background is a dark blue, I hardly ever use black. Stage one is an underpainting, setting the stage for what is to follow.

2. (For you who follow this method, this is the start of stage two, not the finish of it.) Here the relative values are corrected, if needed. In this case, it was needed, as I needed to push the lights lighter (a white or light paper usually does that job, but this paper was darker than the lights). The layers of colour are also built up, to come closer to what I see. But, what about the missing flowers, you ask, didn't you plan for them? Yes I did, but here's a trick: That which is important and which you want to catch attention, that is roughly blocked in at the start, in stage one. That which is to be subdued and hinted at is treated as one mass at the beginning, and added only later as details, in order for it to 'melt into' the background or surroundings. Picture 2, to the right, shows where I stop to evaluate stage 2, and I notice I've painted three equally spaced fold in the cloth, and that is boring, and also detracting, so I paint over the middle stripe of light, as well as deepen the tone of the background, and the drop of the tablecloth.



3. Here is where I start to build volume, making it all three-dimensional looking by adding bands of colour variations. You who know this method will see that I've rushed past stage 3 in the flowers, and nearly finished them. I had to, as the hot halogen light started to change the living flowers too rapidly, for example opening the bud that is the center of interest. I had to respond to the real situation, but as the foundation was solid, all the relationships of the major masses were correct enough, I could do that. Here is where I add bigger details as the flowers that are to be subdued and in shadow.

4. Nearly finished stage four. More colour variations create more 3D. The easiest seen is probably the pinkish reddish band following the left curve of the bawl, which is the reflection of the lit tablecloth. The far right shadow of the chopsticks is added, as it is a small detail, as well as the bright reflection inside the bowl. Here is where the quality of the edges are finalised, too. Some are sharpened, some are blurred. Some edges may need to be more lost, others more found. The final check is for drawing errors that inevitably happen in the process of painting.

See a larger version of the finished painting in the Works section of this site.

In the bleak midwinter, this title is ambiguous. Am I searching for the feel of summer sunshine, or are the vines reaching out their pale yellowed arms to the weaker warmth of winter sun?

Funny how often I find interesting things to paint in other people’s photographs, and Searching for Summer is one of those. Reference given by KreativeK aka Kay at WetCanvas, as a part of a weekly drawing and painting event.

What enticed me here was the possibility to have really fun with the shadows. There were all sorts of reflected lights in them, and also on the wall in sunlight. The yellowy leaves of this Sweet Potato Vine bounced yellow all over the place, and the magenta of the window offered a beautiful spot of complementary colour to the yellow-greens.

In the below picture, I show my progress from underpainting to almost finished.

Well, I thought I had finished it, but then discovered that I’d painted the middle section of shadows too straight, almost as straight as the cast shadow from the shutter. In the ref, there was an object hanging among the “green stuff”, which I didn’t paint, but I simply forgot to consider the shadow. Couldn’t have that, so I repainted the edge of the shadow to a way more interesting pattern, one that leaves would create. Sometimes, one can focus so much on one aspect that another just doesn't enter one's mind.

The method of painting light with colour allows me to take an ordinary pretty scene and make it a symphony of colours. My mission, if you will, in painting is to show the beauty in the ordinary.

A larger image of the finished painting is in this clickable link.

In the class I'm teaching, we've reached how to paint coloured transparent glass. Finding a beautiful reference photo taken by Dianna Ponting in the Reference Image Library at WetCanvas (members only, but signing up is free), I decided to paint it too. Because of its wonderful chrystal colours, and to show my students a bit of the how-to.

I really wanted to focus on the glass itself, and the astonishing colours in their cast shadows, so I chose a crop of the photo which placed the objects as a mass slightly off-center, to create some 'movement' in the picture. As the glass objects are so vivid in colour, a simple composition is all that is needed.

With transparent, if coloured, glass, there are a few things to think of.

The cast shadows will:

- be filled with coloured light,
- have deeper and duller colours where the light has to pass through a lot of glass, as around the edges, 
- the coloured light will mix,
- the irregularities in the glass will show up in the cast shadows, even be enhanced in them.

Choosing a sanded paper, a white Wallis Professional for maximum reflected light, I drew the outlines of the objects, and then filled them in with flat colour (a). Next (b) the colour was made more "right".



Then the three dimentsionality was begun (c), and further developed, with more details (d).

Finally, I focused on details, taking the painting to a higher finish than I usually do, in order to make the sparkling glass justice.

The finished painting is at the top of this blog-post, and a larger version can be seen here.

Needing a ”cityscape” for my all too quickly upcoming show, I contemplated choosing  one from Stockholm’s Old Town. As Stockholm is called “the Venice of the North”, I grabbed the chance to paint a reference I got from a WetCanvas colleague, Joel (aka jlloren). Thank you, Joel, for the use of a ref from “the Stockholm of the Mediterranean”.

After doing a few notan-studies (which I’ve lost in the frenzy of hanging a show), I decided to work out the composition with two colour sketches. They are reversed compared to the original (which is right). In the first, I kept the overhead arch, and the gondola is in the distance.  This sketch felt too crowded, as if there were barriers for the viewer to pass. While it gave a sense of narrow canals, I was not entirely happy, as I “hit my forehead” on the arch, and the darks were not connected, but scattered:

 

In the second sketch, the arch is gone, the building on the left side is gone, and the darks are joined. I moved the gondola closer, and kept more of the tricky architecture of the canal-side part of the Doge’s Palace. While this has more space – more room to breathe – the bridge was not anchored on both sides, and I had a strong object leading out of the picture. On the other hand, what leads out also leads in. But no, this was not it:



I decided to combine the best of the two sketches, flip the picture back to the original so I would get a strong diagonal leading up towards the right – a cheery and dynamic vector, in a tranquil scene. I also decided the painting needed greater depth, as the canal is long.

Then came the funny part: I discovered that I’d edited out the Bridge of Sighs, the Ponte dei Sospiri, which was that bothersome overhead arch! So I named the painting after the visible bridge, Ponte Canonica.

First, the light and shadows were blocked in, underpainted  – establishing the quantity of light --with a greater amount of dark details than I usually start with, as I wanted really deep shadows in the white-ish vertical foreground. (Forebuilding?...):



Next, colour is worked in on top of the underpainting, in order to become more “right” – working on the quality of the light:

Next I focus on using colour temperature to build depth and volume:

More colour variations, working on details, almost finished:

 

Lastly, I work on details, finishing the painting. Here's a close-up of the brightly glittering water in the right foreground, showing layered strokes, and broken colour.

And the finished painting can be seen at the top of this post, and in the Works section in the navigation bar.

Yes, it sold, hot from the easel! Sometimes the old and well used motifs are the best! It was really fun to paint my take on it. A common enough motif, interpreted in my personal unique way.


 

"... in the window?" Remember that old song from the 50's? Last time I heard it was in the 70s, I think. It has been 'playing' in my mind all the time I've painted this, and I can't get rid of it! It really sticks, that one.

I'd like to get commissions painting people's pets. I actually like painting still-lifes, portraits, and portraits of pets, and I think it is wise to not bee too 'snobbish' in these economically shaky times. So when I 'stumbled' upon this reference, I simply had to paint it, as I also could use it to tell a story within the portrait.

That adorable little guy is not looking happy -- he even looks guilty to our human eyes. I had the thought of putting him in a flowerbed, crushing some flowers under his little round rear end. Or having a broken flowerpot in front of him. But freely associating, my thoughts kept coming back to how we so often regard our pets as more or less human. We love our pets, they are members of the family, they definitely are Persons, but, they are animals, and are happier being treated and handled as beloved animals. A dog may be an outstanding reader and interpreter of human emotions, nevertheless he won't be able to grasp abstract concepts.

So this wee pup got a Rubic's cube he is not able to solve, or handle. And he ain't happy, as it is far beyond his capabilities. That is one way to interpret it. Another would be: he chewed on it, and didn't find it tasty. I leave your intepretation to you, it will exist happily side by side with my intentions.

Working on ArtSpectrum's Colourfix, terracotta colour, I first established the darks and the lights to give structure to the painting. All darks are in a cool colour, and all lights in a warm colour, including the sunlit part of his black patches of fur. The image is anchored to the lower edge by the cast shadow, and to the side edges by half-shadows from tufts of grass.



I started his brown parts with a warm green, as I could see they had a clear green bias.

In the next pic I'm two thirds done:


As you can see, I've covered much of the red that started his black fur in light. There are dark blues and greens there, but it still reads as in light because of the red underpainting.

I really enjoyed painting this. I'm finding I'm more and more leaning towards expressing some sort of story or idea in painting, and this puppy's face was a whole story in itself!

At WetCanvas, there was a discussion/educational thread about how to paint snow which gave me the idea to paint my Flowing Ice. The view is from a privat castle outside Stockholm, Tyresö slott. When I shot the reference, there were unusual high water-levels, which then froze to ice. The whole swirly area of ice is a flooded meadow. Normally, the water would be behind the reeds and the boathouse, to the right. The dark "thingy" behind and to the left of the boathouse is a small jetty.

I've not painted many snow-scapes, as I really do not like the cold... Sure, snow is pretty, but it is also cold!

As I'm learning the use of Notan, I made some of these miniature studies:


I chose to use the bottom one for my painting, but without the dark upper right corner. Not that I know what I do, but it seemed to me that extending the background trees beyond the picture would create a more interesting shape and lessen the horizontals as the sky would be broken up and not be one mass. I also considerably lightened the landmass behind the boathouse, keeping all the really dark darks in, around, and connected to the boathouse. In the last notan is it also clear that I changed the patch of snow in the lower left corner so it would point to, and visually connect to, the bg snow, and not be a line that chopped off the corner.

Then I chose a terracotta coloured sheet of Colourfix, made the skeleton drawing, and painted in the first colour-statements. These set the light of the painting, and are flat pure masses of colour:

You can see clearly what the picture represents at this stage, but not if it is land or water. It is also very clear it is a sunny day, with very long shadows, so it is either early morning, late afternoon, or midday sun up by the 60th latitude in January/February.

Next, I made the colours more 'right', by painting on top of the first statements. I like to finish the sky pretty quickly, as it helps me judge the other colours, and also because the trees will go on top of they sky, as they are in the background and I want them hazier, more muted, not so harshly silhouetted. There are several layers of colour involved in making the still flat areas 'right':

Now it is crystal clear it is a winter scene. I developed the boathouse a bit further (beyond flat statements), as that unavoidably will be the area of interest, human artifacts in a landscape always are. In fact, the painting could be finished at this stage, as all the relevant information is there. I will not develop every area, some will remain as they are here. I've rushed ahead a bit more, and started to indicate depth of space in the flat planes.

Next, I developed more space, put in the really dark darks as I felt they were needed, and painted most of the swirls in the ice.

I pushed the house a bit lighter, to make the door part of the dark detials. I've started to work on details and edges.

And in the finished painting, I've added the trees in the bg, and the footprints of an animal, probably a dog, who has run happily over the ice and snow (so the snow wouldn't be a too boring area). I've added the sleeping bush, and reeds, all which are details. And I've paid close attention to edges. See for example how the roof-lines of the boathouse do not run unchecked off the page, they are blurred, which also serves to create the illusion of three-dimensionality:

Why is this picture cooler than the others? Because the others are photographed in incandescent light, and the finish in overcast daylight which brings out the colours much better than the light-bulbs.

A detail of the snow in lower right corner, with footprints. As you can see, the snow isn't as yellow as it seems -- it is the glow of the underpainting that peakes through the rather grayed upper layers:


And another detail from the distance:


And from where the ice ends and meet the snow in shadow:

Luxurious blues, eh? That is the strength of the Unison pastels!

I'm a WetCanvas addict. One reason is the Image Library, where photos taken by artists are shared with other artist for free use as reference material. I want to thank Susan (username susnfx) for the great photo I used for inspiration for my painting "Aspens and Path". I chose a portion, and simplified all that busy 'green stuff', rejected some trees, and came up with a start of a dry pastel painting. It is on an artist's sandpaper, Fisher 400. Unison pastels are rich in pigment, so I decided to wet a brush with water and brush out all that lovely pigment:

      

The wetted pigments filled the tooth of the paper wonderfully well. I allowed it all to dry thoroughly before continuing applying pastel in a slightly looser and more 'scribbly' way than usual -- the painting is relatively big for this medium.



Here I stopped for a while, having almost finished it. Now I needed to make the final decisions. The background yellowy foliage was too yellow, competing with the more close foliage. The simplified mass of firs was too simple and silhouetted. The light stroking the bushes were too close to the edges, and some other minor fixes. After playing some with a picture of the painting in the computer, I decided on some changes, and went back into the studio.

And this is the final result:              And a detail, showing strokes and layers:

       

Larger version found on my website.