Impressionic waterfall

I recently revisit the artwork of Tibor Nagy on Pinterest. He has a very interesting impressionistic style where the whole painting is out of focus, with the key focal point being given a certain amount of focus. I like it. The style speaks to me. I therefore tried to copy his style by copying one of his paintings. The result is presented below. I did not achieve his level of impressionism, but I did go more loose than my usual painting style. Overall the result is satisfactory… I can hear the water roar!

Tibor Nagy’s waterfall

Waterfall

My large screen iPad Pro with Apple Pencil is a real blessing! I use ProCreate to digitally paint on the almost almost canvas size display. I paint from reference images and usually start off using a split screen before I would go over to casting the image onto the TV or computer screens.

I am not 100% satisfied with this attempt, but decided to still post it. It is as if it appears “chalky” rather than “oily”. I aim to make all my digital paintings appear like oil paintings. I do not follow a special digital technique on ProCreate, but try to paint in the exact same style as I would using oil. For example, I do not use layers. There is off course some differences, but I try to stay as close as possible to my oil technique to avoid “brush confusion” when I switch over to oil.

Back to the painting: I found the image on Pinterest. I am reasonably satisfied with it as I can hear the waterfall roar!

Snowy mountain value study

Her is a recent study I performed on my iPad Pro using ProCreate. The aim was to capture the contrast of the rocks and snow in this value study. The timelapse video is posted here.

Another value study

I have not painted in oil for a long time. I therefore decided to first do a value study (a greyscale painting) before I jumped into full colours again. This painting is the result and I am quite satisfied. I decided to tone my canvas in a warm grey and the result was this rather warm painting of a cold theme.

I was amazed how easy it was to do this painting taken that I have not painted for months. I can only assume that the time I have spent painting on the iPad has kept my skills and technique in tune.

The painting was once again based on a painting of Mark Boedges. I am trying to copy his style and I am constantly motivated by his paintings.

The mountain road

A couple of years ago I went mountain biking in the mountains above De Rust and took the photo which I used as the basis for the following painting.  The location was extremely remote and one of those places where I feel really charged.

Well, I decided to use this location for my latest painting.  In this particular painting I tried to capture the essence of the scene in a “painterly” way where the painting appears rough and somewhat unfinished fro close observation, but where it makes complete sense when observed from a distance.  This is in the style of painters such as Scott L. Christensen.  I hope to continue in this style and develop it further in the next couple of week and months.

The read heads

From De Rust to around Calitzdorp in the Klein (Little) Karoo one finds a range of reddish hills.  Depending on the time of day and the lighting conditions these hills can appear yellow (in the morning), light pink (in the middle of the day) and orange changing to red and purple (in the late afternoon).  The features of these hills and the variations of colour and shadows have always captivated my imagination.  With my new found focus on oil paint I have decided to try to capture the essence of the Red Heads (Rooikoppe) of the Klein Karoo on canvas.

Below is my second attempt.  My first attempt was not exactly what I intended to achieve.  I am quite satisfied with this painting as contains a number of technical aspects that I have previously not managed to master.  I could definitely improve on it since that composition is that great, but it does bring a feeling of satisfaction and my post-painting-completion coffee tasted really good as I walked through my painting.

 

Clouds

I have an obsession with clouds.  Living in South Africa kind of forces you to take note of the beautiful sunrises, sunsets and thunderstorm clouds if you live in the interior of the country.  During my last holiday in De Rust in the Klein (Little) Karoo I spend a lot of time working on clouds.  The following post and the one to follow is the result of my study in clouds.   I am really satisfied with the result.

The work was completed in Winsor and Newton Galleria acrylic on canvas sheet.  I only used titanium white, ultramarine and burnt sienna.

Early morning

For the last couple of weeks I have been busy with a commissioned work based on the Red Hills (refer to my previous post listed here) near De Rust in the Western Cape. My plan was to do the same painting with better sky and clouds and a better composition of the mountains. I am busy working through a course of Johannes Vloothuis entitled The Essentials of Painting Mountains and I incorporated what I learned form this course into the painting. But, as I was busy with the landscape I suddenly realized that the hills are quite dark and when I added colour to the hills, that it looks like sunshine hitting it straight on. So the painting turned out as shown below. Rather unexpected, but quite nice. When looking at the painting I get the feeling of being in the Little Karoo early in the morning. I can hear the farm and the sounds through the early morning air. The air is quite chilly and just at that moment the sun breaks the horizon and hits the top of the hills. I feel like I can walk around in this painting and really be there.

The things that works in this painting are the sky, the clouds (to some degree) and the composition of the hill within the photo. I also managed in incorporate some interesting features into the field at the bottom center of the painting. As I look at the painting and sit back to savor my coffee, it tastes really good. The outcome was different to what I expected, but quite satisfying.

I encourage you to click on the image to see a larger version of the painting. The colour is better in the bigger image.

Early morning on the red hills

Grey-scale studies

I have lagged somewhat with the blog posts in the last while, but I want to introduce 2 grey-scale studies in this post. My objective was to work with a heavier paint basis, play with a new range of brushes and in particular play with the scheme of light and dark.

The first painting (presented below) was done with strong application of the palette knife. I don’t feel I quite accomplished the my objective, but the result was acceptable.

Black and white woods

The second study was on a coastal line. I focused more on using a brush than a palette knife in the painting and accomplished what I intended to. I felt that I also succeeded in the proper application of my new brush set in this painting. The yellowish colour in the photo of the painting is due to an effect of the camera.

Coastline

Venturing into tone, value and colour

I recently came across some of the excellent courses of Richard Robinson (http://www.livepaintinglessons.com/) on landscape painting and while viewing his “Landscape Masterclass” course, realized that there are some components of this course that I did not understand. I subsequently bought his course “Mastering Color” (“color” being spelled wrong, off course…) and have been working through that for the last 2 weeks. It addresses all aspects of colour, tone and value and is highly recommended for anyone interested in taking their painting a step further. The essence of the course lies in the principle that just putting colours together could result in a good picture with a realistic appearance, but that the true quality of the painting will lie in the correct use of value – the dark and light components in an image. It is much more complex, but a simplified first step suggested by Robinson is to make use of a value-scale such as presented below to judge the values in a painting and then only make use of those values (the discrete colours) while painting. One can think of it as converting a photograph of your painting to gray-scale and evaluating that to determine the values in the painting. A good painting with inherent value should then still make sense (have meaning) with the colours reduced to grey-scales.

As first pass, I tried to paint the following grey-scale photo using the grey value-scale.

Reference photo for grey value-scale study of the sheep.

I did this study in very poor light since we were in De Rust in December with temperatures of around 40 degrees Celsius. The poor lighting resulted from me working inside with drawn curtains. I tried to work on a couple of things with the two main aspects being the use of the 9 values on the value-scale and trying to paint realistic grass. The painting below presents my efforts. I did not work too much on the realism of the sheep, but I do feel that the shadows are realistic, the use of the value-scale was accomplished to some degree and finally that the grass were painted with a high level of realism. I realized that the grasses must be painted with at least 3 but maybe even with 4 values of grey.  The darkest value represents the roots and the lightest value the highlights of the sun on the grasses.

Flock of sheep greyscale study.

The photo of my painting was taken in the evening, so it does not really reflect the true painting. A great study in the end and one through which much was learned. One of the most important lessons learned was the value contained in performing a study.