Changing direction

I thought I'd post this painting up since it showed a good example of loosing your way and 'changing a color direction'.

The final painting

Title: Peruvian Lily and vegetables Size: 30x48

I nearly always work from a color plan, sometimes I store this in my head, but more often than not I generate a little thumbnail of my planned colors. Here's an example of one.

Color plan.

However despite working from this carefully considered plan, there can be a point in the painting of the subject where you realize it's just not working.

Photo of the painting near the end, but not working...yet

At this point you need to rapidly rethink and often repaint to make new colors and new designs work. From the image above you can see how I lost me way and floundered before dramatically changing the colors of the background darks (in the middle of the picture). Then in turn, some of the elements on the table needed a repaint to come in to line with the new and exciting design.

Sometimes it's important to let the painting speak to you and work from that, especially nearing the end of a painting. Forgetting the old ideas or plans, can build for a stronger finished painting.

This rethink, is a scary time, when you can feel everything has gone wrong and you're never going to be able to pull together a strong piece. But on occasion, ironically enough, these times are when you produce your very best of work.

Though different from its original plan the end result is powerful and I think a great color choice. Sometimes a painting just needs to evolve as you go along...

An additional image of a random detail.

Adapting Color

For me, to be a colorist gives me exceptional freedom and opportunities for creativity. It's what really inspires me within a painting, the limitless options and opportunity I have simply by manipulating the color.

Many contemporary colorists fall into the trap of painting with a limited tonal range, strong colors in similar hues, perhaps with only one or two other 'key colors' placed to create drama (these are often complimentary colors). This can make for dramatic and emotional work, but it can also miss an opportunity. I feel there's a wealth of options available to us when we choose to adapt and change colors within a subject.

Often I like to approach my color adaptations by finding a single element (or perhaps the lighting) within the scene that inspires, and then manipulate all other colors around that theme. The color of a few or many elements may change, some slightly, others dramatically. Working from this single element or concept and relating that to other elements within the scene, adjusting colors as appropriate.

This method can produce dramatic eye catching paintings, with strong colors but with a wide variety of color too.

From time to time I enjoy using this technique, but working from a more subdued palette range. Producing something that has arguably a less challenging or showy presentation, this I feel presents a nice contrast to some of my more 'punchy' palette choices. Of course, in this painting it's not completely understated; I couldn't resist making a dramatic red back cloth, but other colors fall into line with that color choice -


As you can see from this detail below I changed the coloring on the fabric dramatically, but were often I would have used dramatic color, I chose muted earth based tones.

Still wet!

A good challenge

At the risk of waffling a bit - as an artist I believe it’s important to have an area of focus for ones work. For me part of that process is a continued exploration in the subject. For a good number of years now I’ve found myself continually energized by Still Life subjects and I’m always finding a new method to dissect the subject or a new color plan; thus re-exploring the same subject never gets dull. I do however paint a lot of Still Lifes, and it raises another point. To often a singular focus on the same subject for too long can ultimately lead to the works losing their edge and they become less than they should be. To that end, I believe it’s crucial for artists to dabble and explore other artistic endeavors, (to move out of their comfort zone). For it is through this journey that we often grow and develop, bringing new, fresh ideas and even skills back to the original concept/focus.

So to cut a long story short, from time to time I tackle something dramatically different that challenges myself artistically and so here is my most recent challenge –

A Portrait

Painting a portrait is pretty much as far removed from my normal day-to-day painting as I can get. Additionally because of this dramatic departure from the norm it always proves to be a great but rewarding challenge.

The brief I set myself was simply to paint my two children as a double portrait. I’d previously painted them together in May 2005 and I felt it was time to tackle this subject again, before they became too old and I missed a beautiful phase in their growth.

Above shows the painting from May 2005.

I set out to attempt to paint in a different style to the method I had used previously. This was achieved by borrowing from one of my heroes. Joan Eardley’s work has continued to resonate with me through the years and I love her portrait works of Glasgow’s impoverished children. I particularly remember visiting the portrait “brother and sister’ in Aberdeen Art Gallery as I grew up. I chose to borrow this composition for my portrait, knowing that this would immediately set me off in a different direction from my previous portrait. My original intension was to paint in an equally loose and free style as Eardley; but as I worked I found myself unable to keep things as loose as she was able. Over time I had to rework and move away from my original concept, but ultimately produce something that was very different from 2005 rendition.

I consciously gave the portrait a flatter appearance and kept the colors fairly close in relationships as a color/mood contrast to much of the ‘Still Life’ paintings I currently produce. I may not have been able to produce as loose a painting as I may have liked (sheer cowardice to blame I suspect). However, I’m fairly happy with the end result. There’s pretty good continuity across the painting and it captured them both reasonably. I feel this time I slightly missed the mark with my youngest child Luke, though it’s still him. I partly blame this on the expression I chose, in retrospect it perhaps wasn’t a characteristic one?

Luke detail.

It took me a full year to complete this painting so already the children have grown and changed from this point. Various delays and many weeks at a time when I would let the painting sit in my studio, semi-finished; has probably flied in the face of my originally argument of ‘tackling different subject’. Certainly, I feel for challenges such as this to have their greatest impact one should always really focus and explore the new direction, not dabble slowly as I have done here - Oh well, there’s always next time… :-)

Morris detail

Last years, most painted...

At the end of a year, I like to look back and review the paintings I've completed over the past 12 months. One thing I like to do just for fun, is reflect on what my favorite 'muse' was? In other words, what object did I find myself painting most? I even broaden this question to see which flowers I painted most that year?

So, my 2009 most treasured object was...

So for me this vase proved to be my most treasured possession. It was purchased in the summer, from a 'budget-antique type' shop, while I was vacationing back in Britain. I just fell in love with the simple organic curves of it's form and the wonderful crisp leaf and stem designs on it's sides.

Here are just a couple of example paintings I completed using the vase -

And the 2009 most painted flower was....

It actually turned out to be a close run competition with a number of flowers all coming pretty close, but in the end 'the Lilly' squeaked across the finishing line first. Which if I'm honest, is a surprise, because I can struggle a little with them and tend to think I prefer painting Irises or tulips, (which it should be noted have been previous award winners). Just goes to show you never can tell.

..and here are just a few examples of this years Lilies....

Painting on wood panel

The preparing of a wood surface to paint on.

For me this task can be a bit of a chore, but it is a very important stage to get right, and one I like to do myself; from the selection of the wood, all the way through to creating the painting surface (known as the ground). I tend to paint on Maple or Oak, both are hardwoods and have fine grains with few knots, thus good surfaces to work on.

Sometimes I'm asked why paint on wood rather than canvas, for me the answer is simple. I do paint on both, but much of my work is on wood. Wood provides a nice hard surface unlike canvas which gives a bounce when painted on, this effects how you can paint on the surface. You can see this with crisper edges and lines in my paintings on wood, and softer edges on canvas.

An additional point is that the texture of the two surfaces can also be very different. Canvas has a very regular texture on it from the cloths weave; with wood however a number of coats of an Acrylic based paint (gesso) are need to seal the wood, these can be brushed on to create a textured irregular effect, that I find to be a more pleasing under surface to the painting.

As a side note, many of the paintings that have survived the best from previous centuries are painted on wood panels. So perhaps that also speaks to a good painting practice, though I feel these days with proper care, both supports hold up pretty well.