Kendenup Rail Bridge

Here's the plein air painting I did last weekend near Kendenup...

 (Kendenup Rail Bridge. 30x20cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

It's far from perfect but it was an unusual subject or me and presented quite a number of challenges from perspective to tonal contrasts to colour to reflections. Plus, the sun was setting fast so all these things had to be dealt with without much thought.

At one point I thought I'd lost it completely but I pushed on and once I'd mapped in the major highlight areas in the foreground and on the bridge pillars, it didn't look so bad so I continued with it. From here on I added most colour and tone from memory as the scene had changed dramatically in a short time.

I hope to go back soon and try again, from a lower angle so we can see the width of the bridge.

Perfect weather

While summer was colder and wetter than we usually get down here, autumn has been spectacular so far. The last few days in particular were hot with mostly cloudless skies, day and night.

I took the opportunity this afternoon to go an paint a subject I noticed a long time ago.

This bridge carries the Great Southern railway line over a small creek near Kendenup. That trickle of water is probably more than it usually has at this time of year.

Plein air painters have a phrase "chasing the light" and I experienced it full on in this painting.

I started about 4pm, as the sun was casting a shadow of the steel bridge on the creek bed. It was 5pm by the time I finished and, as shown above, the whole scene was in the shadow of the distant trees.

I had to establish major shadow positions and angles at the start and try not to "chase the light" as the major shadow moved away from the bridge and toward me, which it did quite rapidly. I used a limited palette of four colours plus white to save time.

It was a subject I've never tackled before and quite a challenge. I might go back another day and try a slightly lower angle so I see a little of the underside of the bridge as this would give me a nice strong shadow tone and probably some warm reflected light. I hope there's still a bit of water flowing when I get there.

I'll post the finished picture when I can get a good photo of it. In the meantime, here's the plein air painting I did near Woodanilling a few weeks ago...

(Near Woodanilling. 20x22cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

Albany Workshop

Today I did a workshop for Gallery 500 in Albany, hopefully the first of many.

With ten keen and competent "students" and a wonderful workspace at Terra Verde Gallery, it was a great way to spend a few hours on a beautiful autumn morning.

I explained my approach to painting light in the landscape and everyone followed along as I demonstrated each step. With lots of good questions, exchanges of ideas and some good conversation, it was all great fun.

This is my painting, based on a digital image I came up with in my head a few months ago...

And here's a few pics of everyone hard at work as I cracked the whip...

Thanks to Brad and Jo of Gallery 500 for inviting me and to everyone who attended.

My next workshop is planned for late May. Contact Gallery 500 for details.

Woolorama time again

Yesterday I drove about 200km to Wagin to deliver some paintings for the Woolorama art exhibition which takes place in a couple of weeks. It was a hot, humid day with clear skies and a gentle breeze.

On the way home, I deviated down a few back roads looking for "something different" that I could stop and paint. I found it on the road to Woodanilling. The tree was interesting and the light blinding. There was space to park the car and a shady tree to stand beneath.

I had no excuse not to paint.

We normally think of shadows as cool and highlights as warm but these trees seem to have a warm, peachy glow about their trunks, even in the shaded parts. Finding a colour and tone that would convey that warmth whilst still allowing the strongly sunlit highlights to jump was an interesting challenge.

I'll post the finished image when I can photograph it properly.

Strange summer!

Large parts of Australia have been hit with extreme weather this summer. Northern Queensland was hit by floods and then perhaps the largest cyclone on record. Meanwhile, northern and central WA and Victoria have also suffered exceptional flooding. You need to visualise the size of the Australian continent to grasp the area that's been affected. It's ridiculously huge.

Whilst we haven't been personally affected by any of these events, this has been the weirdest summer we've had down south since leaving Perth over seven years ago. February is normally hot and dry, with temperatures in the forties not out of the question. This year, however, we've had the threat of a cyclone, though we're nowhere near the tropics, and of a surprise storm that devastated some southern towns but never quite made it this far. What we have had is day after day of drizzle and rain, often with gusty winds. I think we've only seen clear skies for about four days this month.

With only one week left before autumn arrives, I'm hoping for some opportunities to get out and paint some summer sunlight. In the meantime, I'm managing the odd painting indoors. Here's this week's contribution...

(Evening glow, Porongurup. 30x45cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

This painting was based on a couple of plein air works I did last month. I took a little licence with the lighting since I have seen it turn warm on previous occasions. I kept the mountains simple as I wanted the white sand track to catch the viewer's attention and for the large tree to stand out against an atmospheric backdrop.

Here are the two plein air studies I used as reference.

(Porongurup track. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

(Summer track, Porongurup. 30x20cm oil on board. © Andy  Dolphin)

Latest

Things have been a bit hectic lately but I finally managed to get some painting done.

(Inn Kitchen, Arthur River. 70x37cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

This piece was based on a small plein air painting I did in March last year and "fixed up" a couple of weeks ago.

(Karri Light. 50x37cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

These will be on their way to exhibitions in the coming months.

Digital landscape animated

I thought I'd have a go at animating the step-by-step digital painting process from my last post.

Here you go. Click to see it larger.

How to: Digital Landscape

Here's a  step-by-step breakdown of how I approach a digital landscape painting like the one I did this morning.

For this painting, I used a cartoony cross-hatch brush from Chris Wahl.

For this brush to work to full advantage, you need a pressure-sensitive stylus and Photoshop (other software might also do do this). The default settings for the brush work beautifully as the cross-hatch pattern randomly rotates as you paint. All I change is the brush size and sometimes I turn Other Dynamics - Opacity on or off. I do most of the painting with the Opacity setting on so that a light touch produces a translucent wash. This makes it easier to build blends and allows for a little variety within major tones.

Step 1: Rough outline to locate main shapes. Since this painting was right out of my head, with no visual reference whatsoever, some things will change as I progress.

Step 2: Rough in undertones. Lighter and cooler in the distance, darker and warmer in the foreground. I adjusted the mountain shape so it would fully contain the main tree. I use a fairly large brush here to get the surface covered.

Step 3: Add weight to all tonal areas. I use some of the sky colour in the mountain colour. I do this by painting a transparent patch of the sky blue over the purple from Step 2. Then I select this colour with the eye dropper and apply it across the area. This helps to "absorb" the mountains into the atmosphere, especially the more-distant peaks.

I introduce highlights in the background and mid-tones in the foreground. I re-establish the main tree and distant trees and some minor detail is added to indicate a fence and track. I've also introduced a foreground shadow being cast from a tree off to the left somewhere. This small detail instantly adds depth - plus I like shadows falling across white sand tracks!

Step 4: Highlights are added to the foreground and middle distance. I've strengthened the track and foreground fence posts. By this stage, I'm adjusting the brush size up and down as I work on different areas.

Step 5: I decided to change the shape of the main tree as the earlier shape looked a little "weak". I've also marginally brightened the sky and added my digital signature.

(Imaginary landscape 2. 1500x1000px digital. © Andy Dolphin)

Step 6: Finally, I flattened the whole image, boosted the saturation a little and tweaked some minor details here and there across the whole painting. I could have adjusted the saturation with an adjustment layer instead of flattening - but I didn't.

There is a about 30-40 minutes work in this. Note that at 1500 pixels wide, this image would only produce a high quality (300dpi) print about 12cm wide! If I wanted to do anything serious with it, I could work at this size up to around Step 4 then increase the resolution before continuing with detailing.

Half-awake digital landscape

I had a bit of a sleep yesterday afternoon, after having a tooth pulled. In those moments before I woke up, properly, I saw another landscape image. I tried to focus on it to see if I could commit it to memory.

I should have got up there and then and captured the image as soon as possible, but I was still feeling a bit sorry for myself and went back to sleep. Anyway, I decided to drag it back out from the depths of my memory and here's what I ended up with...

(Imaginary landscape 2. 1500x1000px digital. © Andy Dolphin)

This is nowhere in particular but I think if I headed out around the Stirling Range, I'd find something pretty close to it. Don't forget to click the image to see it at full size.

I painted this in Photoshop using a tablet and stylus. I only used one brush which I downloaded from Chris Wahl's blog. I used the same brush in my previous imaginary landscape digital painting.

I painted this one in layers so I can upload the various stages as a mini digital painting tutorial. The basic approach is the same as I use for oil painting - under-paint in shadow tones followed by mid-tones then highlights.

Revision

Sometimes, despite best efforts, some paintings just don't work. With plein air paintings, the chances of "failure" are much higher as paintings are executed quickly in changing light conditions.

I have quite a collection of paintings that I don't let out in public. Every once in a while, I review them and see if I can recover the feeling that made me want to paint them in the first place.

Here are two such paintings, although you only get to see "the after shots".

(Wansborough Karri. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

This small painting was done in the studio but executed quickly, like a plein air painting. It is based on a piece I did a few years ago. The original lacked a significant warm-cool contrast and therefore failed to portray much depth or the warmth of the sunlight. This little painting was done with a view to doing a larger piece.

(Kitchen, Arthur River. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

This was a little plein air painting I did back in March of the historic Mount Pleasant Inn kitchen at Arthur River.

When I first painted it, the sun disappeared for quite a while and I lost the light that had initially attracted me. As a result, all my tones drifted toward the centre and the painting lacked punch.

Last week I took another look at it and increased the contrast on the building, darkening the shadow side and boosting some of the intense light on the red brick wall. This instantly lifted it so I continued on, making the front row of trees darker to bring them forward from the distant trees. A bit of warm colour was added to the dry foreground grasses and it was saved.

In this case, I painted right over the original because the foundations were okay. It's a risk, because it could all go wrong then you've lost the lot, but it is a huge time saver. This one too might be used as the basis for a larger painting. There are a few exhibitions coming up and I need some paintings bigger than 20x24cm.

Plein air summer

I was invited to this year's first Porongurup art picnic yesterday and decided, this time, I'd do a painting rather than sketches.

We met at the old Woogenellup bridge and I wandered around for half an hour or more looking for something to catch my eye. It's a very interesting place with the abandoned timber bridge sitting alongside a concrete river crossing and culvert. The bridge itself is slowly returning to nature as the timbers rot and grasses and saplings take hold. Much of the area immediately surrounding the bridge is overgrown with grass and scrub.

I chose a spot at one end of the bridge where the post-and-rail fencing ends atop a grassy ridge. The evening sun was shining through at a sharp angle offering interesting contrasts of warm and cool tones.

The colour of the light changed dramatically during the forty minutes or so of painting time and I battled to decide which colours to follow and which to ignore. I ened up with this...

Original, on-site painting

I didn't mind it as an on-site exercise but it lacked punch, largely due to my colours drifting too much toward greys. There was no sunlight shining on the fence or grass by the time I was finishing.

I reviewed the painting this morning and decide to see if I could lift it. Step one was to scrape it back with a palette knife...

On-site painting scraped back ready for retouching

Scraping back an oil painting leaves a clear image in thin, smooth paint.

I reworked almost every part of the under-painting as I wanted to soften the background tones, pushing them back in the process, and strengthen the foreground. Here's where I ended up...

(Post-n-rail. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

It's still a fairly loose study but the finished painting has much-improved tonal contrast, helping the fence stand forward from the distant trees. There is also a more distinct warm-cool contrast between foreground and background.

I also added in a post on the far side of the track. I'd noticed this as I was finishing the original but I was too busy to add it in. It's barely noticeable but adds some dimension to the timber structure.

This was an unusual subject for me as I most-often seek out wide vistas, but I enjoyed the challenge.

Summer daze!

Summer finally hit the Lower Great Southern this week. On Monday the thermometer settled somewhere around 35º C by midday and the wind was full of attitude. So naturally I decided this would be a good time to go outside and paint.

I plastered myself with sunscreen, donned my hat and headed about 1km down the road from home to a spot I'd noticed the day before. Something about this scene, a place I've driven by almost every day for over seven years, caught my eye.

I set up my easel in the ditch on the side of the road and if the gusty wind and searing sun weren't enough of a challenge, I soon discovered that I'd left my palette knife and one of my brushes at home.

I use a palette knife for scraping excess paint from the brush during painting so not having it with me meant wasting more paint and time than usual as I struggled to keep my one main brush clean. Still, I persisted and here's the result after about half an hour, during which my easel almost collapsed after a particularly strong gust of wind...

(Hot & windy. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

Later on, I headed back to the Porongurups to have another go at a spot I painted the day before. I had much more time to work on this one and as a result, I've added a little more detail than usually appears in my plein air works. The downside is that the light changes considerably over an hour so it's possible to end up with two or more paintings in one as the light on the foreground doesn't necessarily match the light on the background which is usually finished first.

In this case, the shift in light wasn't too dramatic and I used the extra time to capture some of the detail in the mountain range. I wouldn't usually do this with distant objects but I couldn't pass up the opportunity while the range was lit and not shadowed by clouds.

(Summer track, Porongurup. 30x20cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

The real thing...

Following on from yesterday morning's imaginary digital landscape painting, I present you with "the real thing".

I headed out yesterday evening and after driving around for and hour or more, I headed to a spot that catches my eye every time I drive past it. Yesterday it reminded me of my morning's efforts so I decided to capture it in oils.

(Porongurup track. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

I was rushed due to fast-changing light (the sun had as good as set by the time I stopped) and clouds rolling in but I caught some of the feeling. I might head back there again today, a bit earlier this time, and see if I can do better.

Imagine

I woke up this morning with a landscape image in my head. This almost never happens to me so I got up and had a go at reproducing it in Photoshop.

I quite like it...

(Imaginary landscape. 1000x717px digital. © Andy Dolphin)

I've spent quite a bit of time recently driving around the Porongurups and this image is heavily influenced by the region although it is nowhere in particular. I've resisted the temptation to saturate the colours as the paddocks are quite bleached at this time of year.

I created this in Photoshop using one custom, cartoon-style cross-hatch brush I downloaded from Chris Wahl's blog. Click on the image to see its effect in more detail.

Thanks for making the brushes available Chris.

Clear evening sky

Christmas eve was warm and incredibly humid around here. In nearby Albany, the moisture hung like a veil of smoke over the city through to the early afternoon. I've never seen anything quite like it before.

Since the evening sky was looking clear, I headed back to the scene I painted a few days ago when it was overcast.

(After Harvest 2. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

Although I stood in virtually the same spot to do this second painting, I decided to zoom in a little more on the tree. Overall this painting is much warmer but there's still not much detail in the mountains due to the haze. On a clear day you can usually see trees and rocks up there!

As I was painting, I could see the colour changing. The blue was leaving the sky and the mountains as the haze became warmer and heavier. Even the feature tree started to lose its colour and contrast. When I was happy to call the first painting finished, I grabbed another board and captured a quick impression of the same scene before last light.

(After Harvest 3. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

This one was fast - about 15 minutes in total. It's turned out just a little bit grey as I didn't have time to clean my brushes or palette but the general feeling is there.

I might have to keep heading back to this spot in different weather conditions and different times of day.

Hope you had a great Christmas.

Artist Tips #2: Painting from photos

Photos seem like an easy starting point for landscape painting and the advent of consumer digital cameras has made photography more accessible than it's ever been before.

Photographs serve as convenient reference material that allows us to paint when we simply can't - or don't want to - get outside. They are also a handy way to produce a lot of paintings from a trip away.

But photography is not without its problems.

We have a much greater range of tone and colour perception than film or digital cameras do and when we view a landscape, our eyes are constantly adjusting to account for light and dark areas. As a result, photos can rarely match what we see in real life.

To understand one of the biggest problems of relying on photos as a basis for painting, take a look at these two photos...

This scene was quite dramatic to look at but neither photo captures it as I saw it.

When I took the photo on the left, I exposed it for the sky. This makes all the dark areas in the land mass much darker than I perceived them. The photo on the right was exposed by first pointing the camera toward the tree line then pressing the shutter button half-way before recomposing and taking the photo. This opens up the aperture (or the digital equivalent) and gives me detail in the darker areas but blows out the bright areas in the sky. It's almost impossible (for me anyway) to successfully expose both areas in one photo to appear the same way we perceive it with our eyes.

Knowing this happens, I often take several photos, exposing each one differently so I'll have reference material for all areas if I decide to paint from photos.

Although it lacks some of the luminosity I experienced, the left-hand photo does a pretty good job with the clouds and sky colours. The right-hand photo captures some of the depth and detail in the land and tree masses but the sky would be virtually useless as a painting reference unless you have a great memory or are happy to invent colours to give it some life. A lot of photos like these probably never get turned into paintings and we might find ourselves wondering why we even took them (I've got boxes full of such photos from the days of film).

If I painted this scene en plein air, the finished painting would combine elements of both photos and would also likely include more warm-cool contrasts and aerial perspective. Getting the same result from "average" photos takes experience, guesswork, luck or imagination.

If you have access to photo editing software and know what you're doing, it's possible to adjust some "average" photos to more-closely match the scene as you saw it with your eyes.

This is the left-hand photo from above but I've used a curve in Photoshop to pull some weight out of the darkest areas whilst leaving the light and mid tones virtually unchanged. Then I adjusted the saturation a little to push a bit more life into the colours, especially the warm highlights in the sky. It still falls short of the scene as I remember it, but it could form the basis of a painting.

If you love doing representational art - where the things you paint are actually recognisable - then the next time someone says "why don't you just take a photo instead?", you can explain how a painting is so much more personal and how a good painting is vastly superior to the average photo. In the meantime, getting out and studying how light truly effects what we see, even taking notes, will make your photo-based paintings more successful.

Humid!

The sun is still playing hide and seek with us but temperatures are on the rise. The last few days have felt like it was going to rain but it just isn't really happening. This, combined with the warmer days, means humidity! I love days like this - it feels like there's a thunder storm around the corner.

On the way home from my day job, I pulled into a rural driveway and did a quick painting of the sky before sunset.

The tones need a little adjusting but there's potential to turn this one into a larger painting.

After packing up, I encountered this sky a little closer to home...

Rest assured the photo doesn't do it justice. There were different clouds shapes and colours in every direction and the heat and humidity were still electrifying. Just my kind of evening.

PS. I just checked the weather forecast and the Bureau agree there could be thunderstorms.

Clouds!

I looked outside at 6am and the place was glowing, with strong sunlight streaming through the trees. So I got up, had breakfast and coffee and prepared to go painting. By 7am I was in the van but the sun was nowhere to be seen.

I decided to go out anyway in the hope the clouds would break up as the sun rose higher. I headed out to the Porongurups and the cloud cover got heavier until, eventually, it started to rain.

I pressed on regardless and the sun kept teasing me with hints that it might break though anytime soon.

I drove around Porongurup for a while before noticing a setting that looked like it had been designed by a landscape artist. The tree was the "perfect" shape (a lot of gum trees are a bit on the ugly side) and the backdrop, with a cloud draped over one of the Porongurup Range peaks, was magical. The long dry grass in front of the dark silhouette of the tree sealed the deal for me.

Everything was still basically shades of grey but the cool dark tones of the mountains and trees contrasted nicely with the warm straw stubble in the paddocks.

I decided I'd have to paint it - sunlight or no sunlight.

 (Almost finished)

The lack of harsh light meant that I was able to take a little more time painting as the colours barely changed the whole time I was there.

The muted colour also meant I could use a limited palette - Ultramarine, Crimson, Yellow Ochre and Australian Red Gold plus white. I could even have got away without the Oz-Red-Gold but I quite like using it in mixes.

I can't recall the last time I did a landscape without using any cadmium colours - this might be a first!

(After Harvest. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

I'm really pleased with this one and I think I might do a larger painting from it.

Latest paintings

Here's the Porongurup landscape painting I did a couple of days ago. I've popped it in a frame for you.

(Knights Road, Porongurup. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

Here's another one of the Porongurups that I did about four days earlier.

(Woodlands Road, Porongurup. 20x24cm oil on board. © Andy Dolphin)

The top painting was done using a chisel-edged synthetic brush while the bottom painting was done with bristle brushes. Click on them both to compare the different finishes.

Both paintings were done en plein air but I must confess to making a few adjustments to the bottom one in the studio ans the light was fading fast when I painted it.

Another sunny day - sort of...

There were fluffy clouds around all day today but it was warm and sunny for the most part, making it the second sunny day so far this summer.

I headed out to the Porongurups this evening and found a pleasant spot off the side of Knights Road, looking south toward the mountains. The cloud cover had increased and there were a lot of cloud shadows, especially on the distant hills, but the foreground was bathed in sunlight.

I set up and started painting, taking careful note of the major shadows cast by the foreground and mid-ground trees. This was to prove prophetic as the clouds soon rolled in and before long, nothing was in sunlight. I continued painting with an image firmly in my mind. It was quite pleasant as things don't change much when it's cloudy - but I needed to be careful to not go painting too much detail in the shadow side of my main tree (shadow areas become more detailed in the absence of bright, direct light).

Eventually the sun peeked through for a few minutes and I took this opportunity to put highlights on the main trees and some of the sunlit grass.

After I took the photo, I made a few more additions and adjustments, including reworking the clouds which looked too heavy and somewhat dull.

I stayed fairly true to the scene before me. The only "major" change I made was to turn the two foreground trees into just one as they were almost in line from where I stood to paint. I also made the mountains slightly taller so they didn't "kiss" the top of the that tree. Compositionally, it's best to have edges either overlapping or not touching at all rather than just touching.

I used just one square, synthetic brush on almost the entire painting. It's a brush I've owned for years but I think this is the first time I've used it - I usually use square or filbert bristle brushes. The synthetic brush is more pliable and cleans much more easily than the bristle brushes. I think I'll be using it again for my plein air work.