Drawing Inspiration - From Thumbnail Sketch to a Landscape Painting

Using thumbnail drawings to work out an idea.

I've been thinking about this blog for a while now as is evident from the time since my last one.

We've all heard about the importance of drawing skills but sometimes you just have to doodle to get to an idea for a painting or to work out a suitable composition before you commit paint to canvas. Now doodle, in this case, is more correctly named thumbnail sketch. I use this term since it is one that I was taught in my advertising and graphic design days as a way to work through many creative ideas in the least amount of time.

I sometimes paint landscapes from memory but in order to stimulate a final composition I work out the idea in my sketchbook within very small squares. This scan from my sketchbook show the start:

Thumbnail Sketch for Golden Hills by Warren Peterson

As you can see I divided up the page into a number of squares and started to place landscape elements in a number of variations. Funny thing here is how close I came to my final idea at this stage. Come back to this picture later to see which one made it through!

As I work out these ideas I am always trying different placements, horizons and scale within the composition:

Thumbnail Sketches for Golden Hills by Warren Peterson

You can see in the image above how I tried out different types of trees, right or left placement and how much background I wanted to reveal. I knew I wanted a Fall painting and I also knew that in order to create depth the background hills needed to take on a larger roll while the foreground trees led the viewer into the picture.

Thumbnail Sketches for Golden Hills by Warren Peterson

Here you can see that I strayed from my original composition as I tried out a broad vista view ( top right and middle left thumbnails) but quickly moved back. All through this process I am looking at each element's position on the picture plain and its scale in relation to the foreground, mid ground and background. I also keep an eye on their relation to the edges of the "canvas". These thumbnails took about 20 minutes to do.

Once I got my general idea down I work out a scale drawing with the major landscape elements giving careful attention to the overall composition. I'm not worried about representing the trees etc. in a realistic manner as this is not meant to be a fine drawing of the scene. Here's the thumbnail worked up into a 8 1/2" x 11" drawing:

Drawing for Golden Hills by Warren Peterson

Now I usually draw Pine trees a little more realistic than what you see here but my main concern was their placement against the background and the left edge of the canvas. I transferred this composition to the canvas and got to work on Golden Hills:

Golden Hills by Warren Peterson -  18" x 24" acrylic on canvas

As I worked through the final painting I felt that bare rock in the foreground was too stark so I added some new growth to illustrate renewal in contrast to the dead tree truck overhanging the water on the island.

Working out painting or any other idea through thumbnail sketches is an efficient use of time and materials and is a great way to stimulate new ideas or to explore a theme.

I have a painting demonstration on my web site that shows you how I take the rough outline on the canvas to a final painting. It's a quick read so come by and click on the Demonstration tab at my web site.

Here's the link:

www.warrenpetersonfineart.com 

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!