• The next work should be the one that you put in all of the good and leave out some of the bad of the past.
• We don't work enough for the sake of learning but too much for the sake of having it known that we work.
• Do as well as you can and let it go.
• Exaggerate beauty if you can.
• Try to represent the reality and it will be handsome enough.
• The great thing is to get the relation of the parts.
• Approach your painting from a distance and your fresh eyes will tell you where you are in your work.
• The struggle of one color with another produces color.

Canyon Rocks

 

 

Canyon Rocks

Canyon Rocks

Clouds Over Cleveland National Forest

The night before there was the most amazing sunset.  I rushed home to take a picture of it and found I had missed the light show.  It was in my top five sunsets of all time.

I had missed a meeting of the California Art Club Orange County Chapter which is under new leadership to eat with some friends that night also.  My artistic needs were not being fulfilled.

Clouds Over Cleveland National Forest

I was preparing to paint in the studio when my wife called and said I had to get out and paint because the clouds were so big.

I went close to the house so I could get started right away.  I am painting on masonite coated with a mixture of acrylic paint and fine pumice gel.  The board is about 24"X30".

Clouds Over Cleveland National Forest

As I was driving the couple of minutes to my location I thought about some key learnings from painting clouds in the past.

-Capture the shape quickly.

-Establish the lights and darks and don't over work the first impression.

-Don't chase the changing shapes but work to get the values and detail within the shapes correct.

-Work from memory.

 



The clouds were the focus so the mountains in the distance had to be subdued.  I have a tendancy to not exagerate the atmospheric perspective which has a tendancy to make my paintings less realistic.  Once I was happy with the clouds I started on the mountains so that they would have the right relationship.



Clouds Over Cleveland National Forest



The focus on the mountain was to get the solid feeling of it without diminishing the strength of the clouds; while creating the feeling of distance.

I like how the contrast in the style of marks worked and in particular how the mountain turned out.  I feel like I really captured the color and values in the mountain.

Clouds Over Cleveland National Forest

I converted the picture of my painting to black and white to see if I got the values right.  My feeeling about the mountain was right.  Even though it is not the focus of the painting it brings everything together.

Landscape Painting John Carlson



• Objects drawn upon the canvas may have almost any color scheme as far as color harmony is concerned.  The question is what color or set of colors best expresses our idea in a given picture.
• The very key or the general color of a painting must show that the artist has felt the beauty and significance of the scene.
• Reserve is strength and overstatement is meaningless.
• The great philosopher who can say what beauty is has not yet arisen.
• The separate application of complimentary colors in the masses creates vibrancy and an iridescent  prismatic effect that is critical in creating the sense of atmospheric perspective and the feeling of receding masses.  It is achieved by painting the colors separately not by mixing them wet into wet on the canvas.

The Art Spirit

• We are not here to do what has already been done.
• You are painting for yourself not the jury.
• Completion does not depend on the material representation.  The work is done when that special thing has been said.
• Work with great speed.
• Finish as quickly as you can.
• Get the greatest possibilty of expression in the larger masses first.
• Do not pass from the work on mass to features until all that can be said about the large masses has been said.
• Hold on to the belief that great drawing comes from doing everything possible with the largest masses and the largest gestures.
• Capture the moment it was most beautiful to me.
• Paint the picture on the pallet and then transfer it to the canvas-no waste of pigment.

Hawthorne on Painting

• Mastery is a balance of form and color in the composition.
• Mastery is considered the creation of a richly orchestrated pictorial space in which form fusing with color turns into a new reality-the created painting.
• The mechanics of putting one spot of color next to another-the fundamental thing.
• Anything under the sun is beautiful if you have the vision.
• People are interested in the expression of beauty; something that makes them believe in the beauty and glory of human existence.
• He the artist must show people more-more than they already see and he must show them with so much sympathy and understanding that they will recognize it as if they themselves had seen the beauty and the glory.
• Better to make a big thing out of a little subject than to make a little thing out of a big subject.
• Don't strain for a grand subject anything is the painters fodder.
• You must feel the beauty of something before you start.