Landscape Painting in Oil: Plein Air on the Croton River

I used my HD Flip camera to record the progress of a painting I did along the Croton River over a two hour period.

8 Tips on Painting Landscapes in Oil

The view from above the Hamilton/Appel home in upstate New York

Tip 1: Draw the composition with a blue/purple oil color mixed with fast-drying alkyd medium.
Tip 2: Paint from the top to the bottom of the canvas, and from the background to the foreground of the space so the layers overlap coming forward.

Tip 3: Warm the horizon line by painting a mix of titanium white, yellow ochre, and quinacridone red to create the sense of distant light and to separate the layers.

Tip 4: Paint distant forms so they have less contrast and more blue/purple; and lighten those colors at the bottom of each horizontal band to separate the layers of space.

Tip 5: Toward the end of the painting process, add linseed oil or painting medium to the color mixtures to slow the drying time.

Tip 6: After painting an area, soften the edges of the shapes by gently rubbing them with a clean, dry brush.

Tip 7: To paint highlights, mix the colors with alkyd white (often called "fast-drying white") or a stiff medium (stand oil or sun-thickened linseed oil) so they sit on top of the blended colors.

Tip 8: Make sure to have a diagonal shape that leads viewers into the paint, and zig-zag the flow of shapes to take viewers through the entire picture.

"Hamilton/Appel Home," 2010, oil, 11 x 14. Collection the artist.

Talking about the painting process in terms of "tips" may be overly simplistic and obvious, but it's a handy way of sharing some of the advice I've received from artists I've interviewed over the years. In my experience, that advice helps record a lot of information in a short period of time (2 + 1/2 hours, in this case), it helps convey the sense of atmosphere and space in a landscape, and it helps capture the beauty of the location.

Painting Waterfalls No. 1

The subject in a state park on the border of Massachusetts and New York.

Step 1: The major shapes blocked in in shades of purple and gray

Step 2: Adding a poster-like display of the local colors.

The completed painting: Bash Bish Falls in May, oil, 14 x 11.

I've started painting a series of waterfalls because there is something so appealing about the subject, and because I want a more romantic, atmospheric look to the finished paintings I'm softening edges before the paint dries. I'll add hard edges as I get close to finishing the paintings while leaving some areas soft and gestured. I'm adding linseed oil to the paint mixtures to slow the drying time and therefore allow me to blend the edges after I've blocked in the major shapes.

I did a plein air sketch at one of the most popular waterfalls in the region, Bash Bish Falls, a natural phenomenon on the border of Massachusetts and New York that was drawn and painted dozens of times by the likes of John F. Kensett. I mixed M. Graham's walnut alkyd medium into the oil colors because it is a high-gloss medium that dries more slowly than other alkyd mediums. I wanted to be able to blend the oil colors throughout the painting process and mediums like Galkyd would have caused the paint to dry too quickly. I finished the sketch in about 90 minutes and took photographs I can use to develop a larger studio painting of the scene.

I'm also working on waterfall paintings in my studio that are based on photographs I took in Hawaii and at the New York Botanical Gardens. I'll post those when they are finished.

Creative Options With New Art Supplies

The scene of the workshop: Maui, Hawaii, a real paradise of great weather, flowers,

landscape, and artists.

Carmen Gardner

Jim Lynch, co-sponsor and organizer of the workshop

Michael Clements

The view from our suite at the Hotel Wailea where the workshop was held.

I recently taught a three-day workshop in Maui, Hawaii during which I introduced the participants to new and improved painting materials that weren't familiar to them. One the first day I offered samples of products artists can use with oil colors: R&F's Pigment Bars, Gamblin's new FastMatte alkyd paints, M. Graham's oil colors, and SourceTek panels.

On the second day, workshop participants were given samples of a range of acrylic paints and mediums including those manufactured by Winsor & Newton, Daler-Rowney (Cryla paints), Chroma (Atelier paints), Dick Blick (paints & retarder), and Utrecht (canvases).

On the third day, I provided samples of Jack Richeson's Shiva brand casein paints and mediums that are water soluble but dry to a hard, porous finish. Some students later applied Unison and Jack Richeson pastels over the dry casein paints.

The point of the workshop was for students to have a chance to understand the chemistry and creative options available with paints they have never tried. All of them were glad to be able to learn about materials that would open up new possibilities.

Great Landscape Paintings by F.E. Church

The Icebergs (originally The Union), by Frederic E. Church, on display

at the Dallas Museum of Art

The Icebergs, by Frederic Edwin Church, 1861. Collection the

Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas.

Oil Sketchs for The Icebergs

Sunset from Olana, by Frederic Edwin Church, July 2, 1870, oil, 11 1/6 x 15 1/8. Reproduced in the book Glories of the Hudson. Frederic Edwin Church's Views From Olana

(Cornell University Press, 2009).

I've always considered the 19th Century artist Frederic Edwin Church to be one of the greatest landscape painters, in part because I live along the Hudson River that he painted so often, and in part because his technique was so efficient and effective. His oil sketches show how much information can be recorded quickly if one is skilled at handling a bristle brush and various combinations of oil colors. In addition, his skills as a painter were matched by his cleverness in creating dramatic pictures and marketing them expertly. He made a point of painting exotic, unknown locations and exhibiting them in tents set up to make the massive canvases available to the general public.

Take for example, his painting of The Icebergs, one of the jewels in the collection of the Dallas Museum of Art. I had a chance to see the painting during a recent press trip sponsored by the Dallas Sheraton Hotel, and I bought a book on the painting that details its fascinating history. Church first titled the painting was The Union because he wanted to appeal to northern collectors during the Civil War, but he later changed the title when it seemed likely a British collector sympathetic to the Confederacy would purchase the painting.

Church's home in Hudson, New York has become a mecca for landscape painters who admire the 19th century artist as I do, and there is a new book reproducing a number of the oil sketches Church painted from his mountain-top home. Most were done quickly to capture the fleeting colors and light of dawn and dusk, and very few were ever developed into larger studio paintings. The founders of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York acquired a large collection of Church's sketches because they believed they would be instructive to art students. I totally agree with the women who bought the sketches from the artist's estate.

Pigment Sticks and Encaustics

Cynthia Winika applies melted encaustic paint to an Encausticbord panel.

Cynthia using a heat gun to fuse RandF encaustics to the panel

Cynthia demonstrating a range of techniques possible with encaustics, including scraping into the wax and pigment, adding collage elements, and building up thick textures.

I recently participated in a one-day workshop in encaustic painting at the offices of RandF Handmade Paints (http://www.rdpaints.com/) in Kingston, New York. Artist Cynthia Winika gave me a tour of the plant where RandF Pigment Sticks and RandF Encaustic Paints are made, and then she demonstrated a range of techniques using the sticks made from wax, pigment, and damar crystals. Cynthia also introduced a new board made specifically for encaustic by Ampersand that is called Encausticbord.

Encaustic is one of the oldest painting materials and is usually associated with Egyptian mummy portraits painted on wood and wrapped with the bodies of noble persons; but there are a number of contemporary artists like Jasper Johns, Nancy Graves, Linda Benglis, and Richard Serra who use the medium to create paintings that can have either a matte finish, textured surface or a jewel -like polished finish. RandF makes their sticks by combining bees wax with pigment and a small amount of damar so they can be melted, applied to a rigid support, fused with heat, and then polished. The company provides literature to explain the process and also offers workshops in their offices and at other locations.

RandF Handmade Paints also manufactures Pigment Sticks, a solid form of oil color that can be used with tube colors to create paintings. I plan to use the sticks during the initial drawing stage of my painting process because they allow me to translate the direct action of my hand and arm to the initial lines on a canvas or panel, and I can then dissolve the paint to establish the big shapes within a landscape or figure painting.

I'll be introducing RandF Pigment Sticks to the students who participate in my upcoming workshop in Hawaii, and I'll be posting the results on this blog.

Drawing & Painting With Other Artists

Wendy Walworth painting the landscape en plein air.

Patricia Watwood painting on a chilly Friday afternoon.

John Dowd painting the spring landscape

My charcoal portrait drawing of Roland Szegi

Over the weekend of April 9-11, 2010, Christopher ("Kip") Forbes hosted a group of 11 artists at his estate, Timberfield, in New Jersey. Roland Szegi and Chase Keller posed in the living room of one of the cottage and in a walled garden, and a number of artists painted landscape on the grounds. There will be a short article about the gather in the summer issue of Workshop magazine (http://www.artistdaily.com/), and an exhibition of the artists' work will be held in the fall at the Forbes Galleries at 60 Fifth Avenue in New York.

This was the sixth collaboration between Forbes,Inc and American Artist. Three were held at the Forbes Trinchera Ranch in Colorado (1996, 1999, and 2006), one at the Forbes Chateau de Balleroy in Normandy, France (1997), and one at Old Battersea House in London (2004). Following in the tradition of previous gatherings, the artists and hosts had an enjoyable time together, and the artists created great artwork.