A Walk in the Woods: Texture Too Beautiful to Paint

Lately, I've been walking in the woods.  Does this sound strange for someone who lives on the "bold coast" of Maine?  This picturesque place, with its high cliffs towering over crashing waves and offering vistas of faraway islands and the occasional whale, is dear to tourists, who often travel long distances from uninspiring places.  But for me, my eye sometimes need a break from all the majesty.  A walk in the woods where the faraway is replaced by the nearby is just the thing.

For a painter, the beauty of the deep woods—so deep that a ray of sunlight is as rare as an off-season whale—can be puzzling.  How would one paint something like that?  In my experience, a successful painting hinges on two things:  contrast and simple, big shapes.  Neither of these are to be found in the deep woods.  Instead, its beauty relies on just the opposite:  subtle or no contrast, and complex, tiny shapes.   It's all about visual texture.

I've included some photos to show you the textures I saw on yesterday's walk.  Moss, lichen, tree bark, asters, toadstools and, if you step back a bit, the larger picture that seems just as complex and textural.  Even zoomed out, the subtle contrasts and complexity, now composed of trail and trunk, are still there, much as would be the case were you to zoom out on a fractal.

I don't know how to paint this overabundance of texture.  Not with my loose, somewhat Impressionistic brush work.  I would have to draw it instead, with pen and ink or pencil, and with more time that I'm willing to give.  So instead, a walk just to experience it, and perhaps a camera to capture a small bit of it, is enough for me.  My whole being hums and buzzes after a walk in the woods.  It's like a spiritual massage.

I'm also including an image of an oil painting by Asher Durand, the well-known Hudson River School painter.  In my mind, he was a master of painting this kind of texture.  The painting, titled (probably not by Durand) as "Oil Study of Wood Interior," is rather large for a study.  At 24x16 inches, it's more likely a studio painting based on smaller sketches and studies.  I love this piece because it so well describes some of the texture I see on my woodland walks.

"Study of a Wood Interior"  24x16 oil, canvas mounted on panel
Asher Durand, c. 1855
Collection:  Addison Gallery of Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA

Going for the Grand View

"Passamaquoddy Sunset" 12x24 oil on panel by Michael Chesley Johnson.
Commissioned studio painting created from field references.

Here's something I've learned over the years:  A big landscape requires a big canvas.

I'm sure it sounds obvious.  But I bet many outdoor painters, like me, have tried to cram an awe-inspiring vista into a 9x12 panel only to discover it just doesn't work.  The scale is wrong for creating the impression of depth and distance.  Plus, so many objects are included within the frame that they fight for both space and attention.   Looking at a painting like this makes me claustrophobic, and I just want to flee, seeking air.

This error in painting, I believe, happens for a couple of reasons.

A student going to a plein air painting workshop may travel a long distance, so he may bring only small canvases to lighten the load.  Also, workshops tend to be held in beautiful spots.  I take my students to grand vistas all the time, but my demonstrations typically focus on just some small part of it.  However, the student, deeply moved by the beauty, aims to record all of Grand Canyon on an 8x10 panel.

Also, with the ready availability of images on the Internet and the proliferation of small computer screens, we have gotten too used to viewing big artwork on tiny screens.  Seeing Fredric Church's "Heart of the Andes," which is nearly six feet by ten, on an iPhone presents a much different experience when seen in person.  But seeing artwork in a much-reduced format has gotten us used to painting in a small format, and we forget to step back.  If we stepped back, we'd realize instantly that the small format is inappropriate.

Here's my advice.  If you must paint the whole view and it's a wide vista, work on a 12x24 panel (or even a 12x36.)  If the scene requires a squarer format, where foreground and perhaps sky are as important as the view, work on an 18x24 or 24x30.  Otherwise, small panels (8x10, 9x12) require you to crop the scene severely.  You are better off doing small studies of parts of the grand view, and then taking them back to the studio to be used as references for a larger piece that can properly portray the moment.

Old-Time Plein Air Painting Adventures

Santa Fe
Worthington Whittredge
8 1/8 x 23 1/8, oil on paper on canvas
Yale University Art Gallery

Hudson River School painter Worthington Whittredge, probably most known for his woodland scenes and panoramas of the Catskills and Shawangunks back east, made several trips out west.    In 1866, he made his first trip with the army expedition of General John Pope.  One of the stops was Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Whittredge typically went out on short sketching trips after making camp, taking his revolver and campstool.  According to American Paradise: The World of the Hudson River School (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013):

When Whittredge had nearly finished painting Santa Fe, he was confronted by a rough-looking fellow, brandishing a pistol, who demanded to buy the picture. Whittredge, maintaining his calm, pacified his would-be customer by explaining that he was merely doing a 'sketch to make a large picture from,' which would be sold in New York.

I don't carry a gun when painting, so I probably would have sold it to the fellow on the spot.

By the way, I have a family connection to Worthington Whittredge, by marriage.  Not that it does me any good, of course, except to serve as inspiration.

Plein Air Painting: Journey's End or Just Another Roadside Attraction?

References for a finished painting
12x9 oil field study, plus photographs

Some of today's plein air painters have the idea that starting and then finishing a painting in the field is the only way to portray the truth of the landscape.  Plein air painting as the culmination of landscape art is, however, a fairly recent concept being bandied about today by plein air purists and organizers of plein air events.  It's my opinion and also that of many landscape painters that the truth can be fully realized most successfully in the studio.

The idea of completing a painting in the field came about relatively recently, starting with the French Realists and then the Impressionists.  Until then, if you wanted to paint a landscape, which was most likely the setting for a history painting or an illustration of classical myth, you went to the field with sketchbook and pencil to draw and add notes about color effects.  If you didn't mind a little more baggage, you might take watercolors and capture those notes in color rather than pencil.  You probably avoided taking oil colors, since that would require you to prep several pigs' bladders with the colors you required.  The invention of the collapsible paint tube in 1841, however, made it easier to take out oils.  But even so, the point of the outdoor excursion was to gather reference material that you could then build on in the studio.  The early Hudson River School painters are noted for extensive field studies and the majestic paintings they created out of them.

The finished studio painting
"By the Bridge / Arizona Winter"
24x18 oil
Michael Chesley Johnson

Then the French Realists and the Impressionists came on the scene. Courbet, Monet and those who followed in their footsteps completed works entirely outdoors from life.  For the Realists, it was a way to connect in a more raw and, therefore honest, way with the rural world.  They wanted to stay true to the source.  For the Impressionists, it was a way to connect with the "moment."  Without observing and then immediately recording the impression, the precious qualities of that moment would be lost to memory by the time one got back to the studio.  Suddenly, everybody was out painting and enjoying the sunshine.

But it wasn't long before the invention of photography and, especially, of color photography and the snapshot, made it possible for the painter to spend very little time in the field.  (Albert Bierstadt, who came from the Hudson River School tradition, is notable as being one of the first landscape painters to make extensive use of photography, although he used it more as a supplement to his field sketches.)  A click of the shutter was all it took to gather reference material.  Despite the problems of working from photographs, many painters who had cut their teeth on field studies began working exclusively from prints and slides.  Hobbyists and amateurs, who decided it was too much work dealing with wind, changing shadows and gnats, joined them.  Still, work-from-life diehards continued to paint finished works outdoors, but quietly.

But then suddenly with new Millenium, retiring Baby Boomers, attracted by workshops offered in beautiful locations, picked up the brush and headed outdoors.  A fad was born.  Plein air painting competitions sprang up and even a magazine was dedicated to it.  Gallery owners, art center directors and Chambers of Commerce realized that this was a marketing opportunity.  Soon, every small, scenically-located town seemed to be hosting a plein air festival.  This type of painting even evolved into an extreme sport, with painters hanging by their toes from cliffs or enduring snow storms and sub-zero temperatures.  (Today, even the man-on-the-street knows what a "plain air" painter is, though he may not be able to spell it.)

At the competitions, the hot topic was, Does a work have to be painted exclusively outdoors to be considered plein air?  If you spent a half-hour in the studio making adjustments, did that invalidate the work?  Jokes about counting brush strokes and the like became common among some of the artists.  Purists, however, didn't see it as a joke and argued against touching up or finishing a painting indoors.

It wasn't long before some of the painters, especially the professionals, began to tire of the plein air milieu.  I'll never forget what one well-known painter whose plein air workshop I took several years ago said:  "I'm getting tired of this whole plein air 'thing'."  Artists began to yearn for the studio, a place where they had complete control over the weather, and where coffee could be brewed.  Workshops began to have names like "From Study to Studio," and even the students began to look for a class where they could stay out of the wind.

And this is where we are today.  Many artists who have always worked outdoors are now remembering the value of the studio.  Besides coffee and controlled weather, the studio gives you the space and time to go further with design, color choices and mark-making.  In the studio, you can enlarge your canvas, widen your scope and deepen your thinking.  The result can be a more satisfying and rewarding effort than a two-hour sketch made on-location.

Don't let all this make you think I'm no longer a dedicated plein air painter.  In fact, I'm more dedicated than ever.  I am working even harder in the field, knowing that the information I get there will make or break what I do in the studio.  In my plein air workshops (in Sedona, Arizona, at www.PaintSedona.com and on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, at www.PaintCampobello.com), I will show you how to maximize your efforts outdoors, no matter what your final destination.

Composition: Plein Air Studies v. Studio Paintings

While reading American Paradise (see my previous blog post), I came across the above painting.  I was immediately struck by the modernness of the composition.  It's like a snapshot you might take on a woodland walk.   What gives it this quality is the tight, intimate cropping of the scene and the informal, very naturalistic, arrangement of shapes.  This painting might have been done by one of today's landscape painters.

(Pictured: Asher Durand.  Interior of a Wood, Ca. 1850. Oil on canvas, 17 x 24 in. Unsigned. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts.)

But it wasn't.  It was painted by Asher Durand in 1850.  Unsigned, it is a field study.  Although Durand permitted such studies to be exhibited, he didn't consider them finished works.  Instead, he used them to create the more formal arrangements in the studio that we consider typical of the Hudson River School, such as this one:

(Pictured: Asher Durand. The Beeches, 1845. Oil on canvas, 6133/8 x 4 81/8 in.  Signed and dated at lower left: A. B. Durand 1845. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.)

My question to you is, Which style do you prefer?

I rather like the first one, as it feels truer.  The second one, though no doubt based on similar, truthful studies, feels more like a fiction.

Encounter: Jervis McEntee, Hudson River Schoool Painter

Jervis McEntee

In the early mornings and before it gets light enough to work in the studio, I read.  Right now, I'm reading an excellent book on the Hudson River School painters.  American Paradise:  The World of the Hudson River School is an exhibition catalog published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and is available as a PDF download.  If you are interested in American art history, it's worthwhile reading.

This morning, I came across the painter Jervis McEntee.  I wasn't familiar with this minor Hudson River School painter, but according to one of the essays in the book, he left several diaries which give us a lot of information about the daily life of a painter in middle 19th century New York.  I discovered that his diaries are online.  (See http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/diaries/mcentee.) Through them, we have fascinating glimpses into the head of a painter much concerned about sales and reputation:

I had a letter from [G.H.] Boughton two or three days ago. He and his wife had been on the continent for a short trip. He sent me that same notice in the Times which three others have sent me and regrets that my picture is not sold. Thinks I ask too much for it and that English people will not pay large prices for works by strangers. I am a little sorry I had not asked a little less but still I didnt care to sacrifice much on it as I am quite sure to get my price for it in New York next winter.

Mount Desert Island, Maine, by Jervis McEntee, 1864, oil on canvas - National Gallery of Art, Washington - DSC00124

Working in Style

This morning I lugged my French easel and a 12x16 canvas out to the hinterlands of Campobello Island. Lower Duck Pond is about as far as you can go into the Roosevelt-Campobello International Park, unless you go all the way to the end, Liberty Point. But I'd hiked around Lower Duck Pond the other evening and thought it'd be a good early morning spot. Low tide, especially, is an attraction for me, and it doesn't get any better than the Duck Ponds.

"Flood Tide at Dawn" 12x16, oil/canvas

This painting ended up having a Hudson River School quality. Not that I'm bragging! The point I want to make is that I wasn't thinking of doing a Hudson River School painting at the time. I was just mixing paint and paying attention to the color harmonies I saw. If you've been following my blog, you'll have seen other styles, even as recently as this week. Sometimes the paintings were painted with modern brushwork and expressionistic color. I bet if you looked over my last 10 years of paintings, you'd see at least a half-dozen painting personalities there. Who am I channelling today? John Frederick Kensett? Rockwell Kent? Emile Gruppe? Edward Hopper? Or possibly even Cezanne?

I don't think there's anything wrong with painting in a variety of styles. Sure, the gallery or the museum will want to see work with a consistent style. Showing a variety of styles in a show can confuse the viewer. There's also something to be said for "brand identity." But when I paint, there are so many things to think about, things that seem to me more important than trying to apply a consistent style over my body of work.

Still, isn't style the summit of craft? If I am so meticulous with design, color usage and brushwork - shouldn't I also be concerned about consistency of style? I have a favorite quotation regarding consistency. "Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contract myself. I am large; I contain multitudes." (Walt Whitman.)

Refining Plein Air Work

It's only in recent times that the "plein air as performance art" method of painting has become popular and, to many minds, the only way to paint when outdoors. We can attribute this purist — or in some extreme cases, zealot — approach to the French Impressionists. They're the ones who would go out, paint in a two-hour frenzy, and call their "impressions" of the landscape finished. But traditionally, going back to the Hudson River School painters and beyond, painters went out to create sketches. These sketches, some in charcoal with scrawled notes about color, others in pastel, watercolor or even oil, were not considered worthy of exhibition. Instead, the artists intended for them to be merely field notes upon which larger, more time-intensive studio pieces would be based.

Today, many artists still take this traditional approach. Others, who paint mostly en plein air but don't cross the line from being purists to zealots, will take their sketches to the studio and refine them. Rather than creating an entirely new work, they will take what they did in the field and refine or enhance it. I almost always end up refining my work in the studio. It's rare when that "performance piece" turns out to be satisfactory. My refinements run the gamut from adding a single stroke to wiping out whole sections and repainting them. (More the former; much less the latter.)

I offer a painting I did last week, "Spring Comes to Snug Cove." I went out to sketch apple trees in bloom, but as the late spring still hadn't given what I was hoping for, I settled on sketching clouds and a view of the cliffs near Snug Cove. Perhaps because I wasn't emotionally involved with the scene at the start, I analyzed the scene with detached interest and did a good job of pinning it down. As I worked, the scene began to excite me, my involvement grew, and I realized that my analysis was "right on." I was very pleased with the painting when I got it home.

But after a day on the "viewing mantle," I saw a problem. The two humps that make up the cliff on the left were identical in roundness and size. I needed to vary one so my eye wouldn't be drawn to that unintentional symmetry (even though it was really there!) So, to the left hump I changed the grassy edge, added more fallen rocks and a tiny bit of blue-gray for sky color. This tiny refinement escaped me in the field, and it was necessary to spend some time in the studio to make it a better painting. If a larger refinement was needed, I wouldn't have hesitated to take a big brush and wipe out whole sections.

Here are the before and after closeups of those two humps, followed by the final version. (And, as always, you can click on the small images for a larger picture.)

Final Version: SOLD "Spring Comes to Snug Cove" 9x12, pastel