A PAINTER'S PROGRESS
by Susan Adams on 6/27/2010 1:28:00 PM
"Block Study Sunny Day"
This is a watercolor block study in sunlight that I painted as a demo for my students last week. The block study is the first step in learning how to paint using color to show form. The "colorist" or Impressionist movement is based on the premise that every time there is a plane change in an object, there is a color change as well. This is not a new observation; it emerged about 150 years ago in Europe. It is not a technique, it is a way of seeing.
As more colorful pigments were introduced to artists in the middle of the 19th century, color began to take a more prominent role in their paintings. New pre-mixed paints in metal tubes freed artists to paint outdoors, instead of being confined to their studios where they had to grind their own pigments. Claude Monet began to discover, by painting the same outdoor scene over and over again at different times of day in different weather, that the color and quality of light falling on the same object changed the color of that object profoundly. He realized he was actually painting the color of light instead of the object itself. Thus Impressionism was born. Although there have been many permutations and "isms" in the evolution of art since that time, the colorist tradition has been carried forward.
American Impressionists such as William Merritt Chase, Charles Hawthorne and Henry Hensche kept the flame alive. Hawthorne founded the Cape Cod School of Art in 1899. His protegé Henry Hensche became the director in 1930. Hensche died in 1992. I have had the privilege of studying, in oils, with several of Henry Hensche's students through the years. Along my path as a painter, this way of seeing and painting is by far the most exciting and challenging. My goal is to interpret in watercolor what I have learned in oils. Painting block studies in various lighting situations is the first step to glorious paintings filled with color and light.
by Susan Adams on 6/19/2010 6:04:02 PM
St Emillion view from hill
I had hoped to blog from France, but we were pretty isolated and the wifi connection was poor. I hit the ground running after I got back. Five new paintings were due to my gallery, and luckily there were five from the trip that I matted, framed and delivered on time. Next day taught my Tuesday morning class and later on that week wrote a new poem for the Friday poetry group. Phew!! Not being able to relax and nurture any jet lag, I came down with some kind of stomach virus. No fun!
France was a valuable experience. Although there was a bit too much sightseeing and not enough painting time for my taste, I was very pleased with the students' work. We had a newly built art studio to use, which came in handy because it rained a few times. Most of the days were grey days, so we got to practice our light skies and darker, closer-in-value ground planes. I think it is more difficult to paint a grey day than a sunny day, and it is certainly more difficult to teach the colorist approach on a grey day. We were all hoping for sun, but didn't get much of it. One morning I went out before anyone else was up and found a bit of "bright" if not sun, for an hour or so.
I enjoyed painting with gouache while I was there. In the past I have used gouache on top of watercolor, but this time I used gouache exclusively on several pieces and was pleased with the result. The pigment particles of gouache are large and opaque, so they sit on the surface of the paper, unlike watercolor. The resulting matte finish is even and very pleasing. There is something about the look and feel of gouache that captured the grey overcast weather and the intense green of the ground plane perfectly. Here is one of my gouache late afternoon grey day paintings.
"Cool and Cloudy"
John Singer Sargent, a master watercolorist, was very concerned with the surface quality of his watercolor paintings. History tells us that he would paint the same image over and over, not only to achieve the look of effortlessness, but also to preserve the pristine surface quality of the paper. In contrast, Winslow Homer, another watercolor giant, scraped, scratched, rubbed and overpainted on the same paper to achieve the results he wanted, surfaces bedamned. I am with Sargent on this; I love surface qualilty.
I'll be posting some daily paintings for auction on eBay soon.
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