Landscape Painting Inside & Out
Language: English
Pages: 144
ISBN: 1600619088
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Paint with passion, purpose and pleasure.
What do you want your landscape painting to say about this place, this moment? How do you use the visual vocabulary—line, shape, value, color, edges—to say it? With this book, your conversation with nature will direct your brush. With an exhilarating, synergistic combination of indoor and outdoor painting, Kevin Macpherson shows you how to create personal, poetic landscapes that capture the feeling of being there.
Learn how to:
- Use a limited palette in a way that is more liberating than limiting.
- Experience nature to the fullest and capture its vibrancy back in the studio through photos, sketches and outdoor studies.
- Cope with the fleeting qualities of atmosphere and light by establishing a value plan early and sticking with it.
- Incorporate impressionistic touches of broken color to give your landscape a depth and vibrancy that enhances its realism.
- Approach painting as a layering and corrective process that encourages non-formulaic solutions.
Stimulating warm-up exercises in the studio prepare you for your adventures outside, while eight step-by-step demonstrations show you how to put these methods into action. Throughout, Macpherson's own light-filled landscapes illustrate the power of these techniques.
Full of fresh air and fresh art, Landscape Painting Inside and Out will guide and encourage beginners while challenging more accomplished artists to bring greater vitality and a more natural, less formulaic finish to their paintings.
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nature’s moods and effects adds to your visual encyclopedia. ° Because no one painting represents a huge investment of time or materials, you will find it easier to move forward to new challenges instead of feeling compelled to rework large, problematic paintings. ° Painting at a small size forces you to simplify the many details of a scene into the most important larger shapes and to correctly relate the major shapes without being distracted by details. ° When you are back in your studio, your
remainder of the scene after your “stars” are gone. 72 J_33422pp62-87_C5.indd 72 6/27/06 9:53:49 AM GENERALIZE INTO THE FOCAL POINT METHOD 4: Build the wholeness of the painting surface before honing in on the focal point. Develop all the parts at the same rate, without giving an extra degree of “finish” to any one area until you fine-tune the contrasts of value, color and edges at the focal point. ADVANTAGE: This method is especially useful when your focal point is uncertain. For example,
creates a negative shape. ° Pattern: Emphasize the two-dimensional qualities of the scene, making interesting patterns rather than worrying about “space.” ° Rhythm: Find and emphasize fluid shapes, lines and colors. Tonal: Keep all your colors and values very close. ° PAINT A LARGE PAINTING EXCLUSIVELY FROM PHOTO REFERENCE Photo reference is convenient and at times the only reference available for a subject. Solve the visual problems on a small scale; work out the color choices and value
TE This canvas was my palette for Spring Greens. The wonderful colorful mixtures and the scraped, textured surface will make a unique and challenging base for a future painting I might call Painting Out of Chaos. 119 J_33422pp88-119_C6.indd 119 6/3/06 2:06:59 PM THE PATH TO SUCCESS 7 Your art quest begins well before you start to put paint to canvas. It begins with these questions: Why do you paint? What does success mean to you? As you struggle to find the answers, you start the artful
We must remain enthusiastic and energetic. Art enriches your life; feed your art and the art will give back. But also remember that artistic success is more than financial success: it means successful living, which each artist must judge for himself. 135 J_33422pp120-139_C7.indd 135 6/27/06 9:59:00 AM REFLECTIONS ON A POND In August 1996, I conceived of a series of paintings. The term “series” is perhaps an inadequate description for what I eventually called my Pond Project. This was not