Scumbling

What I find so compelling about painting with oils is that there are so many ways to apply it. To make a strong statement, you can lay it on thickly like impasto. Thick paint goes hand in hand with coarse brushwork, often using bristle brushes to create a raised effect. The result immediately draws the viewer’s attention, and the three-dimensional strokes can evoke strong emotion. Oil paint applied thinly is equally great for portraits and realistic styles because you can softly blend areas while the paint is still wet, thus creating a subtle transition from one color to another. Another method of paint application that involves a “blend” of two colors is scumbling.

Scumbling is a painting technique that can be used to modify the color on a canvas, using a thin layer of paint. The under layer must first be dry. Using a dry bristle or synthetic brush or a clean lint-free rag, dip the brush or rag into a slightly thinned, semi-opaque color and loosely brush or scrub it on over the under layer with a circular or back and forth motion, only partly covering it. The scumble color should be lighter than the under layer to be most effective.

 A unique look can be achieved by using a complementary color as the scumble color, for example, a cadmium red over a viridian green. When it dries, you will notice that the green will resonate through the red layer. Similarly, you can cool down a hot color by scumbling over it with blue or green mixed with a little titanium white.

Here's the final result of my Composition painting with a scumbled background.

It’s a great technique that is worth investigating. I’ve applied a scumble layer to dark backgrounds with great results. Give it a try!

A Word About Varnish

Varnish is a clear, colorless solution containing a solvent and either a natural or synthetic resin that has been used for centuries on oil paintings and more recently on acrylic paintings.

Varnishing your paintings adds a layer of protection and can measurably affect its appearance.

Air contains a variety of pollutants that in time will cling to the surface of a painting and will alter the colors. Besides the air, your painting will be susceptible to moisture, including humidity, liquids, dust, and other contaminants. Most conservators recommend varnishing paintings because environmental pollutants are more easily removed from the varnish layer than from paint layers. Some prefer varnishes containing synthetic resins, which allow for the most reversible, least invasive conservation treatments. Some artists prefer more traditional varnishes containing natural resins such as damar and mastic, which are slower to dry than synthetic resin varnishes and, therefore, are more easily applied with a brush. But there are drawbacks to using traditional varnishes.

Color and Surface Unification 

 When you apply varnish, you will notice the color intensifies. A gloss varnish will deepen the color, while a satin finish will slightly strengthen the appearance.

Applying varnish also helps to create a unified surface. Sometimes a finished painting will have both shiny and dull areas. This variation can happen for several reasons.

Mixing paint brands-Different brands of paint use different ratios of ingredients (binder/pigment) and the types of fillers may differ. This inconsistency results in different levels of sheen.

Using Medium-Some oil painters use medium to control the viscosity of their paint. Some mediums, like Liquin, are glossy. If you have a different amount of medium in each stroke, you are likely to end up with an uneven surface.

Glazing - A glazed layer of paint will dry glossy. If you glaze only parts of your painting you should varnish it to even out the surface sheen.

When to Varnish

How to decide when it is safe to varnish is tricky. Drying rates vary greatly based on the thickness of the paint and on the temperature and humidity levels they are exposed to.

There’s no hard and fast rule. Thicker paint will dry slower while thin layers of paint will dry faster. The fingernail test is one way to determine if your painting is dry enough to varnish. Press a fingernail on the paint. If it can leave a mark, the paint is not dry enough to varnish. If it doesn’t leave a mark, like a dent, then you can varnish it. If your style of painting is impasto, you may have to wait a year to varnish.

Types of Varnish

There are several types of varnishes on the market. They include traditional natural varnishes both hard and soft, and synthetic varnishes.

Traditional Natural Varnishes

Traditional natural varnishes include Dammar, Copal, Amber and Mastic.

Copal and Amber varnishes, referred to as hard varnishes, were used by the Old Masters.

They are a golden in color and give a rich glossy and enamel-like appearance. However, they are susceptible to cracking, extensive yellowing and become increasingly difficult to remove from painting over time.

True hard Copal and Amber varnishes are rare in the world today, though some specialist manufacturers still offer unique historically-accurate painting varnishes.

Dammar (can be spelled Damar) and Mastic varnishes are referred to as soft varnishes because they dissolve in solvents such as turpentine and mineral spirits. They can be removed from an oil painting surface without greatly affecting the paint layers below.

Dammar varnish comes from tree resin and is paler than Copal but has great viscosity and is still used commonly in oil painting today. However, Dammar (because it’s a natural resin) has a tendency to yellow over time. It also becomes more brittle as it dries, leaving your canvas more likely to crack if the canvas is disturbed.

Synthetic Varnishes

Some examples of synthetic varnishes are MSA, Gamvar, and Alkyd Synthetic Resins.

Synthetic varnishes offer a lot of advantages over the traditional natural varnishes including:

• A clear coat on the first application that stays clear over time, therefore non-yellowing and more flexible.
• Are available in liquid or aerosol form, are readily available and cost-effective and they come in a variety of sheens, such as matte, satin or gloss.
• They allow for relatively easy removal with less risk to underlying paint layers.

Alkyd Synthetic Resins such as Schmincke Picture Varnish provide a glossy, non-yellowing, colorless, highly resistant topcoat. but they must be applied after eight to twelve months.

Mineral Spirit Acrylic varnishes (MSAs) have a high molecular weight and tend to offer a better protective surface, have greater elasticity and more resistance to blooming. Must be applied after eight to twelve months.

If You Can’t Wait

If you need to show or sell a painting before it is completely dry, you can use retouch varnish. Retouch varnish offers some protection and unification of color, though it’s not as strong a coating as a regular varnish. Some recent varnishes also have the great advantage of being able to be applied when the painting is just touch dry – rather than waiting for the painting to be fully cured.

Gamblin makes a varnish called Gamvar which has been developed specifically for this purpose.

Drying Time

Drying times of varnishes vary, depending on the absorbency of paint, ground and substrate layers. Paintings on panel supports, for instance, might absorb less varnish and therefore dry more slowly. At any rate, try to avoid any dust settling into the fresh varnish layer. Place your varnished painting away from drafts and if possible, keep it covered.

Varnish Need Not be Permanent

Varnishing a painting need not be permanent. After a varnished painting has lost its luster over time, the varnish layer can easily be removed, taking the built-up of pollutants and particles with it. (As a general rule, varnish should be removed and reapplied every fifty years or so.)

Workshop News

The first week of class went really well. The room is quite large and the supplies were well organized so that all of the students had everything they needed at their table. The door was open and the fans drew air to the outside. Everyone was careful and wore their masks. As I worked, my actions were taped and transmitted on a large screen. Here’s a photo of the first class at Artsplace. There are eight students, each with their own table.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying their time back in the classroom. It sure feels good to be teaching again!

Aerial Perspective in Landscapes

Aerial perspective or atmospheric perspective refers to the effect the atmosphere has on the appearance of an object as it is viewed from a distance, the appearance being its color and value.

In my last post, I talked about the curtains of water particles that inhabit the atmosphere and how these curtains change the color of the sky as it approaches the horizon. The same effect holds true for landscape subjects in the distance. As colors recede from the eye over terrain, they become cooler, with the exception of white. A cooler color means a color that tends to contain blue, while a warm color is made up of reds and yellows. In this picture, the trees in the distance appear cooler in color and change to blue in the far distance.

Color Changes

The greater the distance and the more atmosphere, the bluer the distant objects become. As your eye travels, you will notice that the color yellow disappears first, including all of the yellows that mix with other colors such as yellow green, browns, and oranges.

A warm yellow green in the foreground will transition to an emerald green and then a cool blue-green.

In this picture, the closest greens contain more yellow, and as we look further, the yellows dissipate, until the greens in the distance become a blue-green. The sky at the horizon is also lighter and changes to a gray-rose in color.

Reds will prevail slightly longer than yellow, before they too succumb to blue. That’s why mountains tend toward a warm purple before they change in their farthest distance to blue. Atmospheric particles affect the value of a color as well as the temperature in a landscape. You can see in this photo of a mountain range, the transition from green to blue-green, to purple-blue to blue.

Value Changes

All colors will become lighter as they recede, the lightness tempered by the prevailing sky color. As I said last week, whites tend to become slightly warmer and darker as they recede, due to the atmosphere.

 As you would expect, objects close by are deeper in color, their shapes are sharper and the values are more distinct.

It’s important to note that a flat ground plane is always going to be darker than the sky (except when snow is involved), but never as dark as the upright planes such as trees and buildings.

The Sky: A Rainbow of Color

It’s tempting to just pick a nice warm blue and cover the sky in your painting with it. The fact is, the sky is not just blue, but a whole rainbow of colors depending on which direction you are looking and the condition of the atmosphere on any given day.

 The Earth’s Atmosphere is Made of Curtains of Moisture

The earth’s atmosphere is a receiver of light, and it acts as a diffuser of light. It is composed of suspended moisture in the form of gases that veil our view like a series of thin curtains. The veil of moisture fluctuates from dense to light as the weather patterns and the moisture in the atmosphere changes.  Looking through the atmosphere from a close distance, the view is decidedly clear and sharp. It is for the most part colorless. As the distance increases and the atmosphere becomes thicker, it takes on an opaque blue cast. This blue affects the darks and near darks more than it does the lighter tones. However white or near-whites take on a slightly warmer, darker tone as they recede into the distance because of the particles in the atmosphere.

The Sky Rainbow

In this picture, viewing the sky from different angles on a long flat plain, you can see how the density of the atmosphere affects its color. At the zenith, which is approximately 100 miles straight up, the color is a true violet-blue, but as the angle lengthens, the color changes. It becomes warmer and lighter as the air becomes more veiled with the suspended gases. 

The color gradually shifts from violet blue, to true blue, to green-blue. At sixty degrees, it becomes a yellow-green, then orange-yellow, and near the horizon, it turns into a rose-gray hue. This rose-gray hue turns darker as it approaches the horizon, transforming to a hazy warm rose-gray. The reason that it turns darker at the horizon is that the atmosphere is at its densest, and any color or light seen through it has to penetrate a thicker veil of gases. For this reason, when the sun sets, it appears to turn into a red ball.

Pattern and its Unifying Effects

Pattern is an underlying structure that organizes surfaces or structures in a consistent, regular manner. Pattern can be described as a repeating unit of shape or form, but it can also be thought of as the “skeleton” that organizes the parts of a composition. It is one of the most effective ways to unify a painting.
A compositional technique that is not new, Pattern can be found in ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Greek art. It was used extensively as a mode of design by artists in the 17th century when the chiaroscuro technique became popular. Chiaroscuro is a method of painting using strong contrasts between light and dark. 

An excellent example of pattern is “Descent from the Cross,” by Peter Paul Reubens. In this painting, the eye is drawn first to the white drapery, and then to the figure of Christ. The eye flows downward from the upper right side toward the lower left and then the middle, with strong contrasting shapes, using light values and vibrant color.



Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
     by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Another example of pattern is Rembrandt’s "Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee," where the lighter values emphasize the focus of the painting, while the darker values deemphasize everything else around it. The brightest shapes, the waves that are lashing the boat and the crew that is struggling to manage the sails are bathed in light, while the rest of the passengers, including the sleeping Christ are in shadow. 

 "Cumbrian Waterfall" by Richard Schmid

Nature sometimes provides excellent examples of pattern. In “Cumbrian Waterfall,” Richard Schmid used the natural formation of a waterfall and created a single connected shape of light value that winds its way downward between two shapes of contrasting dark values. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the flowing water and follow it downward.

Creating Pattern

Pattern can be a large shape (or a grouping of shapes) within a picture that forms an abstract design. You can create this shape by connecting dark or light shapes of a subject against a contrasting background. Sometimes nature provides a ready-made pattern. Other times, as in still life setups, you can manipulate your subject to achieve an interesting pattern.
Patterns in Nature

Peter S. Stevens, a Harvard biologist, in his book entitled “Patterns in Nature” claims that there are only a finite number of ways that patterns can be structured in nature.

He says that pattern can be classified in five different ways:

• Flow
• Branching
• Spiral
• Packing
• Cracking

All things Flow, following paths of least resistance. Flow can be seen in water, stone, and the growth of trees and other plants. A meandering form of flow shows a movement and repetition of an undulating line.

Branching occurs in the plant world in trees and many plants, but it can also be seen in geological formations, including river deltas.

Galaxies form Spiral patterns, but you can also see evidence of spiral patterns in the opening “fiddlehead” buds of ferns and in nautilus shells.

Packing refers to the way in which compacted cells define each other’s shape. A densely packed cluster of mushrooms will grow together, deforming the circular form of each cap because of crowding.

Cracking Surfaces (like mud or old paint) that shrink as they dry may experience cracking, resulting in a similar cellular pattern.

Subject and Focus

 Recently, I wrote about two methods of composition, specifically the Golden Mean and the Rule of Thirds. Both have been popular techniques for designing a composition for centuries and are still valid today. I’d like to take a step back and talk about the first stages of designing a picture. Before you can decide how to arrange a subject, you need to have an interesting subject, one that you are drawn to and one that attracts the viewer. Along with that decision, you should be thinking about the main focus of your composition. Without a focus, the viewer will become confused, and the design will seem as if it is missing something.

Choosing an Interesting Subject

The decision to paint something revolves around two things: 1. the object, person, or view and 2. your interpretation of that subject. Both are related. What you paint has to be interesting enough to make you want to paint it, beyond thoughts of how pretty it is or how different it is. You need to see your subject as you would interpret it. You should be emotionally drawn to it, with the thought running through your mind, “There’s something about this subject that stirs my imagination. I need to draw/paint it!” For example, I was interested in this old red farmhouse that was surrounded by lush old oak trees with a meandering dirt path leading up to it. But, when some guinea hens began to strut toward the house, I knew I had my subject. I deliberately brightened the area around the leading hens to draw the eye inward onto the hens and up toward the house. 

A good painting unites both the subject before you and your interpretation. When you decide on your picture, you should take into account the values, light, shapes, and negative spaces and arrange all to make a unified whole.



“The artist brain is the sensory brain: sight and sound, smell and taste, touch. These are the elements of magic, and magic is the elemental stuff of art.” Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Your Composition Should Have a Focus

Whether it’s a drawing or a painting, your composition should include something that represents the central focus.

Wherever we look, our eyes naturally find something to focus on, and as we do, everything else becomes secondary. It’s impossible to focus on more than one thing at once. You will see things in your peripheral vision, but not as clearly as the subject your eyes are focused on. So, too, should your picture have something that draws the eye, with everything around it holding a subordinate position. Without a central focus, your picture is just a collection of artifacts. A focus is where the lines of direction and movement should lead the eye. That place should draw a person’s attention and keep it in the picture. Sometimes it’s obvious what the focal point is.

This picture, Duck Sitting on Falls, is a perfect example of a strong focal point. I remember that it was a pleasantly warm summer day so I decided to check out the park where a fresh water pond with a stone bridge stretched several blocks. There were ducks and geese enjoying the water on one end of the pond. At the other end, the sound of a slow waterfall called me like a peaceful lure. A few ducks were lazily swimming about, but I was taken by the nature of the scene on the falls in front of me. A duck is resting in the sun near the edge of the falls. He appears to be enjoying the cool, rhythmic flow of the water below. It inspired me emotionally and I knew right away that he would be my focal point.

The focal point is the most interesting part of the picture and it’s what draws the eye on first sight. But how does one figure out the focal point in a scene where there are a number of things vying for attention? This is where interpretation comes in. You are the artist, it’s up to you to figure out your focal point, emphasize it, and subdue or eliminate the other items. 

To create a single powerful center of interest, use the brightest colors, the sharpest edges, and the most contrasting values to make it stand out. The trees in the background of this picture have softer edges and receding values. The waterfall below the duck directs the eye vertically upward. The brightest area of the picture is the body of the duck, and it has the sharpest edges and strongest contrast.

The next time you decide to paint or draw something, keep in mind both the importance and emotional investment of the subject and how it can become the focal point of your picture. 

My Favorite Gardens

This week I'd like to share some of my paintings of the gardens that I have visited and enjoyed painting. I love to paint en plein air at all types of places, including urban landscapes, beaches, lakes, fields and farms, but I love painting beautiful gardens the best of all. When the daffodils come out and hail the beginning of spring, I get excited by the bright cheerful colors that pop up among the dull browns left from winter's cold embrace. As soon as the weather permits, I'm hunting for garden spots all over the state. Here are a few wonderful places that I've visited lately.

The Pardee Rose Garden

The Pardee Rose Garden in Hamden is a hidden gem. It's small, just about two acres, but the roses are not to be missed. It's quiet and somewhat hidden, but a wonderful secluded place to paint, draw, or just take a stroll. The garden is sectioned off with stretches of wild and hybrid roses and other flowering plants. The park established in 1922 was a gift from William S. Pardee. It is part of Edgerton park and is maintained by the city of New Haven.

Harkness Memorial State Park

I often go to paint at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford. There are several gardens to choose from and they all have their distinctive design. The scene here is the Duck Boy fountain in the West Garden. The gardens are maintained by the state with the help of many volunteers.

The mansion, ‘Eolia’ named for the island home of the Greek god of winds, was built in 1906 and purchased by Edward and Mary Harkness in 1907. The 200+ acres were a working farm and the Mansion was the Harkness’ summer home.

From 1918 to 1929, Beatrix Jones Farrand (landscape designer, one of the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects) redesigned the west garden and created and installed the East Garden, the Boxwood Parterre and the Alpine Rock Garden.

Elizabeth Park Rose Garden

The Elizabeth Park Rose Garden, located in Hartford, is a great place to paint if you love roses. The arches are in full bloom in mid-June into early July, and are just spectacular.

The Helen S Kaman Rose Garden is the center of Elizabeth Park. It is the first municipal rose garden in the United States and the third largest rose garden in the country.

Elizabeth Park's Rose Garden became the first official test garden in 1912 for the American Rose Society founded in 1892, with the idea to test and to provide accurate information about roses for the public. This is when the half-circular section of the garden was added on the south side of the main square. In 1937, the American Rose Society asked the Park to add another semi-circle, which completes the garden of 2.5 acres as it stands today.

Florence Griswold Museum

With the twelve acres of scenic beauty, there's plenty of places to paint at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. Miss Florence’s garden and orchard were the subject for so many paintings by the Lyme Art Colony artists in the early 1900s. Florence Griswold was a keen gardener. From seed catalogs and references to gardening books among her correspondence, she was constantly in search of new and unusual plants. She helped others, including several of the Lyme artists, to establish their own gardens with “good, old-fashioned flowers” and filled her own home with small, informally arranged bouquets of fresh flowers.

Hollister House Garden

I recently discovered a beautiful, magical place to paint, the Hollister House Garden in Washington.
Designed with American interpretation of classic English gardens, it is formal in its structure but informal and rather wild in its style of planting. Begun in 1979 by George Schoellkopf, the garden is sited on the southeastern side of a rambling but serenely dignified eighteenth century house on 25 acres of mostly wooded countryside.

The garden unfolds in successive layers of space and color with delightful informal vistas from one section to the next. Eight-to-ten-foot walls and hedges with dramatic changes in level define the progression of garden spaces – “rooms” as the English like to say – and create a firm architectural framework for the romantic abundance of the plantings. A winding brook and a large pond at the bottom of the lawn add to the variety of the garden scene. They welcome plein air painters every Wednesday morning from 8 am-12 pm. It’s free. Just sign up on their website.

Jeanne’s Garden

I happen to know a few people who are avid gardeners, and my friend Jeanne is one of them. Not a day goes by that she's not out working hard in her gardens. There’s one large sunny one with meandering crushed stone paths that flowers most of the spring, summer and fall. She also has a peaceful shade garden replete with a wooden swing for those lazy days spent with a good book. If she's not in her garden, she's in her shed re-potting plants, making markers for her plants, or starting seedlings.
It's easy to find something beautiful to paint there.

My Quince Bush

My quince bush was especially beautiful this year. The blossoms are mostly pink, but here and there some red petals appear, adding an interesting twist. I love to garden and this year was a good one for flowering plants. From the white and yellow daffodils to the pale pink and fuchsia peonies, the fiery bee balm, peach and ruby day lilies and tall orange centered pink cone flowers, it's fun to see what colors are going to appear next. And, it's fun to watch the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees hover around the blossoms as they gather their food. Sometimes, your backyard is as good a place to paint as any.

Famous Paintings of Gardens

From Sargent to Sorolla, Jonas Wood to Winston Churchill, Berkshire to Bali — here's a video and some reading on how artists have found solace and inspiration in gardens the world over.

Christies' Are these the most beautiful gardens in art?