Plein air problems - shed landscape in oil

A couple of weeks ago I did my first watercolour painting. As a subject, I chose to repaint an old plein air oil painting of a rural shed near my home.

My purpose was two-fold: firstly, to have a go at watercolour and, secondly, to fix a few of the problems in the original oil painting.

Here's the original plein air piece, which I did about 13 years ago.

Barker Shed

35x25cm oil on board.  

© Andy Dolphin

At the time, I was pretty happy with this painting but over the years, I've realised several issues that needed fixing.

The two major issues are a lack of tonal depth – the background is almost as dark and as saturated as the foreground – and the busy brushstrokes and patterns of light and dark over-complicate the scene and reduce the visual impact.

I sorted both of those problems out in the much cleaner and much simpler watercolour painting.

Barker Shed

30x21cm watercolour on Arches medium.  

© Andy Dolphin

Yesterday, I decided to re-do the painting in oil, paying attention to those same problems and trying not to make the same mistakes again.

Barker Shed

30x25cm oil on board.  

© Andy Dolphin

While the finished oil painting is far more detailed than the watercolour painting (and took considerably longer to do), those details retain a sense of unity with their surroundings. The overall contrast, especially of the shed against the background, is much improved from the original.

The tonal pattern of the new painting also provides much better visual impact than the original plein air work. To compare the two, try squinting at them until you only see light and dark. The new painting delivers a much stronger pattern.

I also added a subtle path as a lead in and to break up the large foreground area which would otherwise be a major slab of green. The path carries some of the earthy shed colour down into the lower right corner which helps to create a colour harmony. The distant fruit trees perform a similar role.

You might also note I have dropped that wooden crate from the front of the shed. In reality, the crate is no longer there and I prefer it this way, so I left it out.

Although the final painting is substantially different in effect when compared to the original, it retains a genuine sense of place and I'm sure anyone who is familiar with the location would readily recognise it.

Cottage - plein air oil painting

I mentioned recently that I've found a new favourite painting spot. It's a farm, less than 10 minutes from home, with a history dating back to the late 1800s.

I've been given permission to do some painting around the property and have spent quite a lot of time out there over the last week and have taken a lot of photos since the weather has been less-than-forgiving and mostly not suited to painting outdoors. So far, I've managed to paint five times, and it's rained on three of those occasions.

On my first visit, I wandered around an old, derelict cottage and was captivated by its sunlit eastern face. I photographed it and studied the photos over the last week. I even did a rough Photoshop sketch of it.

Today we had clear skies again, so I headed out to the farm knowing exactly what I planned to paint. It was time to test my "contemporary impressionism" skills again.

So, without further ado, I bring you "Narpyn Cottage, winter morning"...

Narpyn Cottage, winter morning.
Plein air. 38x35cm oil on board.
© Andy Dolphin

At 38x35cm, this is probably the second-biggest plain air painting I've ever done and, at somewhere between 3.5-4 hours to complete, it took the longest, by far. I don't think it's finished yet, though.

Here's stage 1 - the under-painting...

This is a combination of washing-in and wiping-out. Although the idea is to keep things fairly loose, a lot of important questions are asked at this stage. Where are the major darks? What's warm, what's cool? Is it too centred, too high, too low? Why do people say painting is relaxing? Should I have taken up golf instead? The questions just keep coming – the same questions, every time. Some remain unanswered.

There's 15-30 minutes work here.

And here's stage 2, almost two hours in (I didn't know it had taken that long, but that's what my camera claims)...

By this time, the sun had risen pretty high and shifted across to the left, so the shadows had all changed. It was important to try and stick with my layout and not be tempted by what I was seeing in front of me. By the time I finished, the sun had moved far enough that none of these walls were sunlit.

Ordinarily, a thumbnail sketch is a useful reference for dealing with the changing-shadows problem but, in this case, I'd had the image stuck in my head for a week, so I didn't do a thumbnail.

I used the palette knife quite a bit in this painting - for adding and removing paint. That's a whole new world for me. Until this week, I've usually only used a palette knife for mixing paint or, more often, cleaning my brushes - or, sometimes, deleting sections of paintings, or deleting entire paintings. I still have to tame the knife, but this property will offer me a lot of opportunities.

I was exhausted, mentally, when I got home. So I had some lunch and a nanna nap. Then I got up, had coffee and went back for more before sunset. I didn't have much time so I almost literally threw this one together...

Evening, winter.
Plein air sketch. 34x30cm oil on board.
© Andy Dolphin

There's just less than an hour's work here, and much of that time was spent on the two sheds. Actually, most of it was probably spent on the white shearing shed. So many shades of "white"!

When I put the brushes down, the sun had set and the entire scene was in shadow. But when I turned around, the sky was a brilliant orange-violet. Five minutes later, it was all gone.

It was great to have a day with mostly-clear skies.

Something different - plein air in oil

I headed out to my new favourite location this afternoon and decided to try something different to my usual landscapes.

The property sports an old, dilapidated cottage that's overgrown on all sides and provides several opportunities for interesting paintings as the sun moves from one side to the other.

I decided that rather than paint a "pretty" picture of an ageing building nestled in its farmland surrounds, I'd get up close and personal and try to really capture the feeling of the house slowly losing its battle with nature.

Here's the location shot.

I'll post a finished photo and more information soon.

New approach - York Street in oil

Back in February, I entered a challenge set by US artist Terry Miura to paint a simplified version of a streetscape from a photo he supplied.

I chose to enter a digital painting, done in Photoshop, but it did whet my appetite for doing a streetscape of my own, in oils.

I used a primed board with a burnt sienna wash then followed the basic approach recommended by Terry – careful drawing, tonal map, transparent under-painting finishing with opaque paint.

You can see the gridded pencil drawing in this photo of the tonal map under-painting. The idea here is to simplify the image into three or four major tones. 

Then, (mostly) transparent colour was applied over the tonal map. Each area of colour is matched to the tone of the under-painting. Some minor adjustments have been made at this stage too.

  ( Summer Evening - York Street. 25x35cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

Here I've painted over almost all parts of the scene with opaque paint but I am still guided by the tones built up in the earlier stages. Again, I've made subtle changes to areas as I've seen fit, in particular reducing the size of the sunlit areas of road in the middle distance. I'm not certain that I've finished with this one yet. I'm going to live with it in a temporary frame for a while and see what happens.

The painting depicts the main street in Albany, a small coastal city just 50km from my home. It's a very different subject for me but one I'll be investigating further in the future.

Terry Miura is a tonalist so his paintings are essentially monochromatic in that they often have a single colour permeating every part of the painting – and his major focus is on contrasting areas of lights and darks. Local colour and temperature shifts still play a part but are subordinated in his work. Terry is also pushing himself toward being more abstract, so detail is implied rather than stated. The combination of these things results in exceptionally moody and atmospheric scenes.

I live almost 400km from the nearest major city and I'm surrounded by farmland. Down here in southern West Australia, the air is clear – visibility extends beyond 50km on a typical day and colours are saturated for most of the year. On top of this, I am strongly attracted to the interplay of warm and cool parts of a scene.

While I have followed Terry's basic approach, and while tonal contrast forms the foundation of my paintings, I lean toward colour and temperature contrasts rather than tone alone.

Practical 3D Art...

...with a difference.

For years I've had a fascination with the rustic features of farms - from rusty sheds to old vehicles to meandering fence lines. Many of these things have featured in my paintings.

This weekend begins an "artform" of a different kind for me. I got hold of some old fence posts from a farm in Kendenup and will be constructing a rustic fence from them in our back yard. Then, when I sit out on the deck, I'll be able to watch the wrens and robins flitting about the aged, lichen-covered timbers.

Here's most of the posts I purchased. They don't look like much in this arrangement but they have far more character than the treated pine or steel posts (star pickets) that are becoming commonplace these days.

Here's a close-up some of the lichen that attracted my interest. This is the top of a strainer post, already notched ready to accept a top rail.

And here's the first post in position. This is a corner post, it's about 30cm (1ft) in diameter and there's as much below ground as there is above ground. It's about 2.1-2.4m (7-8ft) long in total. I'm only 1.6m (5'3") tall so this post, as seen, comes to almost-shoulder height on me.

This is the biggest of all the posts - it weighs "a ton" and was a killer to move around on my own with nothing but a small sack trolley and some rope. It was an exercise in logistics, or insanity, to get it into the hole. I hadn't anticipated the enormity of strainers and corner posts when I dreamt up this idea - I'd only thought about normal fence posts.

This new-old fence will replace the existing one that keeps our pet sheep out of the back yard, so it's practical, it's three-dimensional and, to me, it's art! I'm not sure my back and shoulders will agree with me tomorrow - they're already complaining.

Revision

Sometimes, despite best efforts, some paintings just don't work. With plein air paintings, the chances of "failure" are much higher as paintings are executed quickly in changing light conditions.

I have quite a collection of paintings that I don't let out in public. Every once in a while, I review them and see if I can recover the feeling that made me want to paint them in the first place.

Here are two such paintings, although you only get to see "the after shots".

(Wansborough Karri. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)
SOLD

This small painting was done in the studio but executed quickly, like a plein air painting. It is based on a piece I did a few years ago. The original lacked a significant warm-cool contrast and therefore failed to portray much depth or the warmth of the sunlight. This little painting was done with a view to doing a larger piece.

(Kitchen, Arthur River. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

This was a little plein air painting I did back in March of the historic Mount Pleasant Inn kitchen at Arthur River.

When I first painted it, the sun disappeared for quite a while and I lost the light that had initially attracted me. As a result, all my tones drifted toward the centre and the painting lacked punch.

Last week I took another look at it and increased the contrast on the building, darkening the shadow side and boosting some of the intense light on the red brick wall. This instantly lifted it so I continued on, making the front row of trees darker to bring them forward from the distant trees. A bit of warm colour was added to the dry foreground grasses and it was saved.

In this case, I painted right over the original because the foundations were okay. It's a risk, because it could all go wrong then you've lost the lot, but it is a huge time saver. This one too might be used as the basis for a larger painting. There are a few exhibitions coming up and I need some paintings bigger than 20x24cm.

Williams Cottage

Here's the painting I did yesterday.

 (Williams Cottage. 20x24cm oil on canvas panel. © 2010, Andy Dolphin)

Now, before you ask, no the title doesn't need an apostrophe. The cottage is in a town called Williams, it isn't a cottage belonging to William. Okay?

This one took about an hour. Other than the loss of light due to clouds, half way through painting, this was a pleasant experience with very little of the tension that can often creep into plein air works.

Although there is less spectacular light, shadow and atmosphere, I find paintings done nearer the middle of the day more relaxing than than those done at the beginning or end of the day when shadows and the colour of the light change dramatically by the minute.

The interesting challenge with this one was that the cottage is barely noticeable in reality. It faces roughly south so I doubt the sun ever lights up the front. There are trees along the roadside at the front of the property so I'm sure a lot of people drive by without seeing it. I had to decide whether to try and enhance the cottage a little and make it a feature, or to leave it subdued as just a part of the overall mass of shadow tones.

I opted for the latter as I think it feels more abandoned this way, almost as if it's hiding, forgotten. I didn't want it to be "pretty".

Did I mention that I used Australian Red Gold in every colour mix in this painting? It was a joy.

And now for something completely different...

I rarely do paintings of buildings that aren't in a state of ruin. I love rusty old sheds that look like they'll fall over in the next strong wind but I generally steer clear of solid buildings.

I was driving around town on Monday evening and noticed the strong, warm light of the setting sun lighting up the Mt Barker railway building. The station was glowing! Yes it was a solid building with no rust in sight but in a painting like this the building isn't as important as the abstract patterns of tones and temperatures and that's what I wanted to focus on.

As usual at this time of day, I was going to be pushed for time before the sun set.

  (Mt Barker Railway Building. 20x24cm oil on canvas panel. © 2010, Andy Dolphin)

I was especially captivated by the interplay of warm and cool reds so that was where I started (I wanted to say "the juxtaposition of warm and cool" because that makes any critique so much more "arty", but I'll avoid it for now). I quickly laid out the main outline shapes then worked on the sunlit face, trying to get the tonal balance correct here. Then I worked out from here, filling in the shaded roofs, walls, lawn, path and shrubbery. The sky, a hint of background buildings and a few flicks of the foreground trees were the last thing I added on site. By now the sun had gone but I wasn't finished - I was missing some of the sunlit areas.

Luckily I had taken a photo of the scene before I started so once I was home I brought the image up on the digital camera screen and used that to add some final details. I hadn't added that strip of sunlight on the floor so the photo was invaluable for placing this correctly. The photo also helped to clarify a couple of confusing shadows that had shifted quite a bit as I was painting so a couple of touch ups and I was done for this sketch.

This painting was done on a canvas panel. I've made a few of these up by gluing pre-primed cotton canvas to my pre-cut MDF boards. I used white PVA glue and finished the canvas with a fresh coat of acrylic gesso.

Next time we have a good clear evening sky, I think I'm going to give this location another go - but starting just a little earlier.

The station is no longer used for its original purpose. Restored in 1997, the main building now houses perhaps the best tourist information centre in Western Australia. The railway itself still operates but only for long, heavy haulage trains that pass through without stopping, on their way to deliver grain to Albany Port.