Painting Winter's Wonderland

We get a lot of snow!

I live in northern Ontario Canada where Lake Superior, the largest of the five Great Lakes, empties into Lake Huron. Lake Superior has over 80,000 sq. miles of water surface and is up to 2,000 ft. deep in places. It's always very cold water, rarely freezes totally over and has a great impact on our weather. The cold north winds kicks up tremendous storms and in the winter they contribute to "lake effect snowfalls" where we get , what we call, a good dumping. One year it snowed for 3 days straight dropping almost 5 feet of snow on our city.

As a Canadian you tend to get use to Winter but I also hate the bitter cold so a lot of my winter painting is studio work. I do like painting winter scenes though and want to share two recent works with you. 

The first one is called "Just a Dusting". It's a bit of a tongue-in-cheek saying up here when one of those good snowfalls happen and we just laugh it off as a "dusting". Mother Nature has a way of bringing out the humour in us! Here the storm has just passed, the sky is clearing and the new snow sparkles in the cold air.  

"Just a Dusting" by Warren Peterson 16" x 20"  

This second one is called " A Quiet Day". The time just after a snowfall it can be very quiet. No wind, the sun peaking out and maybe a Chickadee or Blue Jay calling out as they hunt for food. This painting is a more intimate scene with a large rock face looming up in the background, over looking the lake that is just beginning to freeze over and has a light coating of snow in places. Such scenes are common here, offering you that feeling of wonder and awe that goes with nature's beauty!

"A Quiet Day" by Warren Peterson 8" x 10" 

More of these will be coming so so stay in touch by subscribing to my blog.

You can also see recent work on my Facebook page, Warren Peterson Fine Art, or connect via my web site www.warrenpetersonfineart.com

A Visual Feast

Renewing your faith in colour

Fall is the time of year where we, as artists, renew our faith in colour and just let it out - loud and bold!

I use this time of year to reflect on why Fall is important to me as an artist - great scenes with strong light, high drama and cool, clean crisp air with that distinct smell of fallen leaves. Nothing better than walking down the path in the woods shuffling the leaves under your shoes!

Here's a new Fall painting. I was driving home from our cottage on Lake Superior when I saw this passing storm and the sunlit hills. It left an indelible mark on my memory, just like the smell of fallen leaves!

After the Storm by Warren Peterson 12" x 12"

Getting Intimate With Nature

New Works

I chose the title to help convey a very real feeling I get every time I put brush to canvas. It's hard to describe but if you can get outdoors to sit, hear, smell and taste the great outdoors with it's clean air and natural sounds you'll know what I mean. These new paintings are intimate "portraits" of those special moments. 

I've been busy preparing for a new art show and here's a few pictures of some new paintings that will be in my upcoming jury entrance only Queens Walk Art Show in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. 

Belleveu Morning 16"x20". Our local park on an early morning walk

The Long View 5" x 7"

Island Hopping 5" x 7"

"One Of A Thousand" 8" x 10" - One of the thousand or so islands in the Thousand Islands

Brushwork Through Thick or Thin.

There comes a time in a painter's life that the brush seems to take on a life of it's own, especially when painting en plein air. Lots of practise and many mistakes imprint themselves over time, making your instinctive handling of a passage look easy to some but all those maddening and wonderful mistakes add up to confidence with a brush especially when chasing the light outdoors.

Those strokes also seem to take you to another place when you're back in the studio working the sketches up into larger works, so much so that when you stick your nose into the finished work you sometimes say to yourself "how did I do that?".

The Painterly Approach 

Detail -  Man Vs. Wild 

I'm going to spend some time on this blog looking at how brushwork, with a loaded brush or in a thinly painted passage, can add substance to your paintings in the field or back in your studio.

I've taken sections from a few of my works ( you can see the whole paintings in my web site linked via About Me to the right) that in their own right could be assumed to be full works on their own. Click on each image for a larger view.

Look at this detail to the left. After loosely painting in the tree trunk I took my mid value green and laid it on to establish the main masses. This was a nice summer day with some wind so I wanted to highlight the haphazard growth on this old pine and the storm damaged broken top.

Next I took a green on one side of the brush and another lighter one on the other side. Applying the darker side with a sweeping motion laid in a good strong background on top of which I quickly applied the lighter green very lightly to pick up the darker under colour. I moved on to other sections to let this dry. While doing so the light changed a bit, throwing some deeper shadows under the branches. I liked this and added the darkest strokes to capture that moment.

Detail - Breezy Day. Private collection.

You have to work fast at this with acrylics and, as I said earlier, it takes some practise but the sweeping, loaded brush effect can add a lot of depth. Your brain can add in the details.

This is another example and the "thick over thin" method can be seen here. I usually work from background to foreground, top to bottom so I can overlay the various passages. This was a very windy day and I painted the clouds first in thin washes of blue, gray and white for this section. The loose brushwork in the clouds adds movement to simulate the wind direction. After laying in the tree trunk I took a very loaded brush and carefully added the wind-swept branches and needles of this very old pine in the same direction as the clouds. A light, stabbing upward motion with the brush, coupled with holding it horizontal provided some happy notes on the board. I was in the moment.

Detail - On the Agawa. Private collection.

When travelling I usually take about 6-8 colours with me. You never know when one will work better than another. I do have standard palette.

For this painting to the left I only took my 4 basic palette colours as the location, the Agawa Canyon, is located in a very remote area. I had Cadmium Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Titanium White. This detail is from a painting that was done in about 90 minutes as I had to catch the train back to the city. After laying in the sky and a darker value for the distant mountains in this canyon I went to work on the mixture of hardwood and pine trees. I worked from background dark trees to mid-ground light to foreground dark again. I used a different brush technique on the light green trees by taking a loaded brush, holding it at the tip of the handle and slowly let gravity take over as I gently let it drag from top to bottom holding the brush parallel to the board. I carried the green as a light wash over the distant blue hills to create their treed tops.

Thin and loose. A great combination for distant views

Detail - Pancake Bay

Keeping your paint passages thin, that is without impasto, is a great way to simulate distant places in the picture. These pull you eye back and when combined with receding values give the illusion of depth on a two dimensional surface.

Here you can see how I modulated the background hill with values and various shapes in the brushstrokes to show their underlying structures, vegetation and shadows from the clouds, whose shapes were first blocked in with gray and overlaid with a light white/blue mix. By pushing the clouds shapes around from up-sweeping brush strokes and dabbing semi-white highlights you can get a nice transition between the darker belly of the cloud and the lighter tops. Adding the darker trees at the lake edge further enhances the distance between the lake and the hills.

Detail - Spring Morning Algoma. Private collection.

 Holding your brushwork in reserve is a specific strategy that you can use to ensure that the mood of the painting and its emotive statement is conveyed to the viewer. The detail to the right is from an 18"x24" painting where brushwork was subordinated to colour value and shapes. I wanted a more slick surface in the final painting to give the viewer a chance to set themselves on the shore and look to the distant hills that are too far for details. Your eyes fill in those distant details. The mid-ground shadowed areas act as a foil to draw your eye to the sunny hills and lighter foreground in the finished painting acts as a step into the picture.

You can view the full painting images on my web site via the About Me section at the top right. You will find them in the Plein Air and Archive galleries and can click on them to enlarge.  While there take a look at the Demonstration page to see more of my technique.

Moments of Reflection + new "Skies" painting

Painting shore reflections on water

One of the joys of painting landscapes with acrylics is using their natural transparency to your advantage when painting shoreline reflections in a lake or river scene. I could go on for a long time on this as I find them a challenging and very satisfying subject to paint but I will be discussing this topic over several post.

Water is a colourless liquid that reflects the surrounding atmosphere and land. Depending on the water clarity and weather a reflection can be mirror-like to very broken up.

Detail of photo - Reflections on a quiet pond 

As you can see in the photo I took last fall at a pond not far from my home the still water and sunny day makes for a very mirror-like reflection of the shoreline and trees.

Note how the reflections are muted and almost hang straight down into the water. Reflected details become "smudged" and typically are bit darker than their source.

Click on the image from my photo to see an enlargement.

Detail - Large version of Standing Guard, Agawa Canyon

When I paint reflection of a shore on quiet water I usually start with what the land and/or sky looks like and carry the colours from those passages into the water. In the example to the right I painted the reflections by taking each shore passage directly into the water while I painted the trees etc. Using a  more painterly brushstroke I normally paint thr reflection a a stright down passage and add subtle details later. More and more layers of transparent glazes are used in the shore and for the reflection. Over these I paint a watered down glaze of pure ultramarine/cobalt blue or a glaze of Alizarin Crimson over the green.

Detail - Fine Day, Algoma

In the detail of Fine day, Algoma (private Collection) you can see what I mean about dragging your image of trees and shore directly downwards into the water. This scene also shows how the sky reflection takes on a darker blue.

I also placed some discrete blue passages very lightly over the reflections to give the illusion of water and I softened the edges to "smudge" and mute the reflected areas..

There is a full demonstration page in my web site that shows how I painted the smaller version of Standing Guard, Agawa Canyon that has a lot of reflected shore on water passages. Check it out. You can access via "About Me" in the top right

New Painting - "Storm Over Superior" - Acrylic on 24"x24" gallery wrapped canvas.

This new painting shows my love for the sky and clouds. Lake Superior can be very dramatic and this scene takes the Lake's drama to a new level for me. I took some creative liberties on this while painting the clouds. More of these to come. This one here is for sale. Contact me for details.

"Storm over Superior"  by Warren Peterson

Warren Peterson Fine Art First Blog

Natural Spaces. Wild Places

Here I am, a new blogger. This blog will follow my journey as an artist, naturalist, outdoor lover, workshop teacher and life-long learner as I travel my road.

First and foremost I am an artist living near the shores of Lake Superior, the largest fresh water lake in the world . I have been making art for over 40 years and as an artist my landscape paintings and drawings strive to capture our Natural Spaces and Wild Places, hence the name of this blog.

This blog will preview my new work in addition to my web site that you can visit by going to
www.warrenpetersonfineart.com

I will demonstrate or describe how I do what I do, show you the places I paint and provide enough information so that an artist can follow what I did and a viewer or collector can understand why I did it. It should be fun, entertaining and informative.

I paint in acrylics and watercolours, usually on canvas now but I use to paint exclusively on masonite. I liked the smooth surface but I found that canvas allowed me to loosen up my work and to get a more painterly approach. The work on the right is called " Master Of His Domain" 20"x24" and it depicts a waterfall that that I have painted twice now. It's located about 45 minutes outside my home town and can be a raging torrent or a smaller cascade depending on the weather and snow melt in the spring.

I have a home studio that suits my needs but I love to get outdoors to paint "en plein air". I paint more directly with a loaded brush and limited palette as can be seen on this example below.

This is acrylic, 10"x12" on masonite. I usually paint on this board outdoors as it provides a  strong surface to take some of the transportation punishment they get and I like being able to cut it down to various sizes. I double coat these with gesso an sand to a fairly smooth surface.

I will be posting details on my techniques and showing pictures of the places I visit, sometimes with my wife and two dogs.

There you have it. Time to see if I can get my settings on the blog right!