September 15 Nocturnes... Here's the 'Method and Materials' scoop!

I'm sitting here wishing I felt well enough to go out to paint tonight... just kidding... severe thunderstorms, heavy rain, lightening and hail, tornado warnings near by! Never mind!

So while I'm sitting here, and instead of wasting time, I thought that I'd post some info about what I use to paint, and what my approach to painting nocturnes is in order to answer a number of questions that I'm getting about this.

The Methods and Materials are really just about the same as I use during the day. Painting is painting and painting a nocturne calls for the same sensibilities to Drawing, Value, Color, Composition... Edges, Temperature and most important... Concept!

Observation is key, and painting what you see... not what you know... is essential. This is certainly true during the daylight situations also. But at night you really don't have a choice because much of what you 'think' you know about an object or situation is no longer valid. The darkness obliterates details, artificial lights can obliterate form, and the combination will leave you wondering just what it is that you're looking at. Don't worry about it, you don't need to know, if you're paying attention to putting down the correct relationships of the shapes, values and colors (with the accompanying attention to edges and the qualities of the colors... hue, intensity, value and temperature) that are before you. If you do that with a Concept in mind, you'll have a great time at this.

There is something freeing about painting at night. I suppose that in part it's because you can't see everything that is happening in the subject, or on your painting. The lights I use are great, but they're still limited and this is not like painting in good studio or north light! Even with the 'better' illumination with the LED lights, they're not perfectly color balanced. Your color mixtures will look pretty good, but they will still surprise you a little when you take the paintings inside and view them under good studio light. Painting a nocturne is always an adventure into the unknown.

All of these obstacles make painting nocturnes both a challenge and a thrill to do. And once it's dark, the light doesn't change unless the neighbor, whose house you may be painting, turns off the lights and goes to bed!

I prefer smoother surfaced panels at night so that the glare from the darker colors isn't as bad. That glare makes them hard to photograph for one, but also hard to see the painting once it's varnished.

Usually I tone the panel first with either a warm tone or a dark neutral like some black with blue and a little red mixed in. It's best to let that dry a day or so before painting on it. More and more I prefer the gray vs the warm tone.

I don't switch up my palette, though I may not use as much of the lighter value colors as I would in daylight. I tend to use more of the darker value colors like Transparent Oxide Brown or Red, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue Deep and Viridian. I do add a few colors for catching the intensity of lights at night, like red, blue and green neon. I add some Pthalo colors... blue, green, turqouise. I also like a Quinacridone red or rose for the glowing pinks of some lights.

Here's the palette-
Titanium White
Cad Lemon Yellow
Cad Yellow Deep
Yellow Ochre light
Cad Orange
Cad Scarlet
Cad Red
Quinacridone Red or Rose
Alizarin Crimson
Transparent Oxide Brown or Red
Viridian
Ultramarine Blue
_______________
Night add ons-
Pthalo Blue, Green, Turquoise

I use the 10x12 EasyL box.

This is the Mighty Bright LED Book light.

That's the scoop! Thanks.

Link to the nocturnes on my website.

Click here to go to the 2010 September Nocturnes from Life collection on my website. If you prefer visuals without the writing and commentary this should do it. Thanks.

September 2010 Nocturne Painting Marathon!

Instead of the four paintings a day that I painted for the April Painting Marathon, I'm launching a Nocturne Painting Marathon during which I will be painting 2 nocturnes a night. I know... four paintings a day for 30 days... is a "real" marathon! I'm already feeling like a "lessor" version of myself! Still, two paintings a night, every night in addition to all of the other work I'll be doing ( a lot of September to November deadlines ahead of me), the beginning of the hunting season, a wedding to attend, a two day workshop to teach, and a few other assorted obligations (including the ones that you don't plan on that pop up)... all are sure to challenge my efforts.

"Why would I want to do this?" I have been asked? Because I like painting, a lot, and since the 2009 April Painting Marathon I have been asked a lot if I am going to do it again. I'm not one to want to repeat exactly something like that, a once in a lifetime experience. I don't even know if I could repeat that. But I did enjoy it immensely and have been thinking about what I might do next. I thought about one 30x40 a day for a month (just kidding).

I like painting nocturnes and find a certain expressive freedom in them that comes with the same sort of adrenaline rush that you can get from doing something like eating a wild mushroom for the first time... or putting an airplane into a spin or emergency maneuver for the first time. It's a rush!!!

The subjects are diverse, from natural moonlight to city/industrial to residential lit up scenes. Painting at least 60 of them in the next 30 days means I'll be looking for a lot of variety in the subjects I choose to paint. That is exciting all by itself.

I'LL POST EACH NIGHT'S PAINTINGS THE FOLLOWING MORNING IN MOST CASES. They'll probably also go onto my website, but this is where I'll write about them and what went on. People have asked if they're going to be for sale and the answer is 'YES'.

( I knew there would be things to add...) The paintings are all oil on canvas board and are 5"x7" or 7"x5". For the techies out there, These are Panelli Telati boards, canvas on hardboard, that I over prime with an oil/alkyd type primer. The one I used is no longer available so I would recommend trying an oil primer by Gamblin, Winsor and Newton, Utrecht, Studio Products, Williamsburg, etc.. I've used those too and would find them all good for what I'm doing with these panels.

Auction Info...

1) Below each painting will be a link that says "Click Here to Bid.". This will take you to the 'eBay' page where the paintings are listed for sale via the eBay auction system.

2) Each painting will be put up on a 1 (one) Day Auction for bids. Following the 1(one) Day Auction, they will come off of the market and will not be for sale.

3) The starting price of each painting is $150.00 and includes shipping and insurance to the USA, Canada and Europe. MN residents will be charged MN State Sales Tax. Payments accepted via PayPal.

4) If you purchase a painting it will need time to dry, be varnished and packaged. Following that and cleared payment, the paintings will be shipped promptly. I estimate that it will take approximately 3 weeks following the day the painting is painted for it to be ready to be packed and shipped.

5) I cannot "hold one for" you... "save a special day"... All of the paintings will be put up for a fair sale via the eBay Auction system and will be sold as per that.

Thank you... If I think of anything else I'll add to this post. Oh... This is going to be fun. :-)

Taylors Falls Ten PM

Oil on canvas - 8x10 © Marc R. Hanson'10

This nocturne was painted from life in Taylors Falls last week during my workshop on our 'Nocturne Night'.

Also, this is a first for me, a trial run if you will. I have listed this painting as an auction item on 'ebay'. I have a lot of smaller paintings hanging around that are taking up my studio space and I need the room to work. :) I may be posting some of those in time.

If you are game, you can click on the link below the painting and go there to take a look.




Click here to bid on this painting

Day to Night

I'm going back in time a little bit, but I am in the studio working on longer term paintings. So to stay a little active with some posting here, I thought that I'd let a little 'kitty' out of the bag concerning nocturnes and the way I paint them. There is going directly to the source and painting from life, a requirement IMHO, and then there's using that experience to draw on to do work in the studio.

This isn't really a secret. Artists like Whistler, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, NC Wyeth, Harold VonSchmidt, Frederic Remington, Frank Tenney Johnson, Tom Lovell, Doug Dawson, and a myriad of other painters and illustrators from the past and in present have painted nocturnes from inside during the daylight hours. Most if not all of them had spent a lot of time in the saddle of a horse, or out observing what happens visually at night, in order to be able to render the effect of the 'lack' of light on the subject that they wanted to paint.

As a side note of interest... At night the rods ( about 120 million, the light and dark receptors ) in our retina take over from the cones ( 6 to 7 million, our color receptors). This is the reason that as it darkens our ability to sense color diminishes. Many scientists think that this makes evolutionary sense. At night is when the predators are out. In our early development as humans, it was very important to be able to see those critters, who were out there to eat us, in order to have a chance for survival. Seeing movement was critical, color not as much so.

Harold VonSchmidt, for instance, painted many, many illustrations and easel paintings of the old west, stampeding horses and cows, the cavalry and their scouts, and much more, at night with a very limited palette of either a blue or green dominant color scheme. For many of his paintings he used a palette of Ivory black, Viridian and Alizarin Crimson. Prussian blue and black with burnt sienna is another popular palette for nocturnes. These are very effective generic palettes for nocturnes due to our inablility to see much color at night.

'Cold Riding' - oil - 30x50 - 1954 Harold Von Schmidt


Painting only in the studio with a generic 'nocturne palette', without the experience of painting from life at night, however, presents the painter with the dangerous possibility of becoming 'formulaic' with the subject. Back when Remington was painting there was often a palette for nocturnes referred to as the 'Frank Tenney Johnson' palette because he had so perfected the luminance seen in the night sky. For an illustrator, that's fine. Their job is to communicate the idea of their client to an audience not necessarily of their choice. It's completely possible to make up a situation on canvas in the studio. To do that takes the right amount of skill, and they are skilled.

For a painter who is trying to paint a response to what they're observing in an honest, objective way, I believe that it's imperative that the work is based on direct 'on the spot' observation. Once that you've understood the principles of a particular lighting situation it is possible to use studies from previous, different experiences to make a complete and meaningful statement.

Just take a look at the quality of work that Frederic Remington did with nocturnes. He didn't stand outside painting a wolf staring at him in the moonlight. Yet it's totally believable as an image. And I doubt that the native Americans setting the prairie fire would have thought it a good idea to stand there and allow an artist to set up the easel either. He did use a new tool, flash photography, to capture some models and nocturnal reference. And he did do small sketches from life as a base for his reference.

'Moonlight, Wolf' 1909 Frederic Remington


'The Grassfire' (Backfiring) 1908 Frederic Remington


I've been enjoying painting the nocturnes for a few years now, both from life and in the studio from both life studies and from photo references. Another thing that I do and want to share with you, is to take daytime studies and convert them to nocturnes. I've actually done this a number of times and am going to show you a few here. This first image is my reference for the painting below it. I posted this same image in the recent post about the nocturne article.


'Palmetto Island Park' - oil field study, 9x12 © Marc R. Hanson '06


'Palmetto Island by Night' - oil - 16x20 © Marc R. Hanson '08

Another example are these two images. First one is a little field study painted a couple of years ago in spring. I used it as the only reference for the painting below it called 'Spring Night Light'. I'd been painting some nocturnes from life at this point and felt comfortable with translating day into night.


'Spring Painting' - oil - 10x8 © Marc R. Hanson '06


'Spring Night Light' - oil, 20x16 © Marc R. Hanson '06

In the following images I took the idea of this translating a little further and am showing a couple of examples. In both of these cases the only reference was photographic.

The point of all of this is that what we do as artists is make 'paintings', not duplicates of nature. I find this kind of challenge to be one that gets my creative juices flowing. From the source, to the reference photo or sketch, to the finished painting, the similarities between the two change. I move things, shrink, enlarge, emphasize, de-emphasize and employ any number of other alterations to make 'my' point. To me this is where the creativity in my work lies.


'Full Moon Barn' - oil 14x18 © Marc R. Hanson '06


Reference photo


'Winter Solstice Night' - oil - 20x24 © Marc R. Hanson '06


Photo reference

Article -"Paint Evocative Nocturnes", by Michael Chesley Johnson

'Palmetto Island by Night' - oil - 16x20 © Marc R. Hanson '08

I want to tell you about an online article in The Artist Magazine, 'Painting Evocative Nocturnes' written by artist/writer, Michael Chesley Johnson. The feature is only in the online magazine, the title above links to it. He interviewed four of us who paint nocturnes fairly often, Douglas Morgan of California, Cody DeLong of Arizona, Yours truly and Brian Stewart, also of Minnesota.

It's a very good article and worth the jog over there to see what we all talked about. Thank you Michael.