Stacey mentioned, "I like to think of it ( painting )as less "reporting" and more "poetry"."
In light of that, I wanted to share a few quotes and a book that many of you have probably read, but for those who haven't, I recommend it as a 'must read'.
The book is "Art & fear", 'Observations On The Perils (and Rewards) of ARTMAKING', by David Bayles and Ted Orland. They call it an Artists Survival Guide, and it asks questions like these....
-What is your art really about?
-Where is it going?
-What stands in the way of getting it there?
This is part of what they write in the intro-
"It is about committing your future to your own hands, placing Free Will above predestination, choice above chance. It is about finding your own work"
Here's a sampling of some of their words to the wise...er-artists! ;-)
"In large measure becoming an artist constists of learning to accept yourself, which makes your work personal, and in following your own voice, which makes your work distinctive."
"Making art provides uncomfortably accurate feedback about the gap that inevitaly exists between what you intended to do, and what you did. In fact, if artmaking did not tell you (the maker) so enormously much about yourself, then making art that matters to you would be impossible."
"...The best you can do is make art you care about-and lot's of it!"
"...the first few brushstrokes to the blank canvas satisfy the requirements of many possible paintings, while the last few fit only that painting-they could go nowhere else."
"A finished piece is, in effect, a test of correspondence between imagination and execution."
From Ben Shahn, "The painter who stands before an empty canvas must think in terms of paint." :)
"Fears about yourself prevent you from doing your 'best' work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your 'own' work."
On talent-
"By definition, 'whatever' you have is exactly what you need to produce your best work. There is probably no clearer waste of psychic energy than worrying about how much talent you have-and probably no worry more common. This is true even among artists of considerable accomplishment."
*Have you ordered the book yet??????*
"What you need to know about the next piece is contained in the last piece."
On finding your work-
"If, indeed, for any given time only a certain sort of work resonates with life, then that is the work you need to be doing in that moment. If you try to do some other work, you will miss your moment." (That is pretty heavy if you think about it. Not sure how to know that, but it makes sense.)
"SIMPLY PUT, ART THAT DEALS WITH IDEAS IS MORE INTERESTING THAN ART THAT DEALS WITH TECHNIQUE."
Okay... enough of my tease. There are a few books that we as artists need to have on the shelf. 'The Art Spirit' by R. Henri, 'Hawthorne on Painting', to name a couple of books for thought, and these two. That's my 2cents.
This is a great $10.00 book of only about 120 pages. There is a companion book written by Ted Orland "The View From The Studio Door: How Artists Find Their Way In An Uncertain World", which I just got and have not read yet.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Working in the studio... a color study for larger painting.
Oil-8x10 © Marc R. Hanson
This is a color study for a larger painting that I am just beginning. I am trying to go into an emotional place rather than a descriptive place with this one. We'll see what happens in the translation from this small color comp to the larger painting. I'll keep you posted.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
A Book!
This is exciting! I've just published a new book of paintings that I've done. Please click on the image for a preview.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
'November Flurries Coming' - oil on linen - 16x20 © Marc R. Hanson '08
'Raking Light' - oil on linen - 10x25 © Marc R. Hanson '08
Sunday, November 23, 2008
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
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
Monday, November 17, 2008
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.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
The sun did come out...briefly... today.
'November Coming' - gouache on paper - 4.5x6.5 © Marc R. Hanson '08
So I grabbed the gouache bag and truck and painted one little study. It became too dark to try for two, too bad. I used this medium because I am just not ready to put on the cold weather clothes just yet. Sitting in the truck with a radio, coffee and heat on the feet, is where I was today.
I started doing this in the car last winter and then didn't keep it up. It's a method of last resort, a way to keep painting when you don't feel like being in the elements. I need to remind myself to stay with this... because it's fun! ;)
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