Creating A Painting

Creating
A Painting

Jim Mossman

Artist

An Artist's Journey

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Why "Creating A Painting"? Every artist makes a journey from their start, following their ever changing goals, to a hoped for ever improving and satisfying art career. It could be a hard journey, but the knowledge that others have gained can really ease the way. I'm not too far along in my journey, but herein are some things that have helped me.

The Good, Bad & Ugly thing above was fun to do. But with some modification, it does apply here. After time, you may no longer look favorably on some of your earlier works, painting them over or even assigning them to trash. Welcome to your Uglies. Your Bads aren't really bad. They are the ones that you now see could be improved with a few changes (you've taken off their mask). The Goods are to be cherished, even if you later note areas that you might change.

COLOR

"what Colors do you use?" is probably the question I hear most at beginning and entry level workshops I have attended. Starting out with fewer is better. Use just red, yellow and blue (the primary colors) plus white and experiment with them to get a feel for the range of colors that can be made with them. At my first class the instructor said to use two red. She felt the reds then existing weren't pure (that they had a bit of the other primary colors in them). Mixing warm and cool versions of red would cancel out the effects of those other primary's. The beginner's painting below show what can be done with them.

The colors I use start with an expanded split primary palette (see illustration below). It shows roughly where some commonly used paint colors fall in relationship to the primary and secondary colors (those made by equal parts of two primary colors). It gets a little more complicated when one discovers that different brands of colors with the same name may not look the same.

Where there is a specific color mixture often used for a painting, using other existing colors may directly give what is needed. Below the colors used by four artists are shown. So there is no "perfect universal" palette that fits the needs of all. Developing your own palette is a nice part of your own journey.

Jim's Paint Colors

An Expanded Split Primary Palette

A split primary uses "cool" and "warm" versions of each primary color. For example, yellow a bit on the green or "cool" side (Lemon Yellow) and a yellow a bit on the orange or "warm" side (Cad. Yellow Medium). His colors are chosen from several brands of water soluble paints.

Is the Choice of Colors Critical?

Perhaps Not As Critical As One Might Think

Four different sets of colors used by well established teaching artists can be shown below. Each artist used their own color set to make paintings in the same area of Wyoming and each of their paintings successfully reflected that locale.

Palette One:

Titanium White

Alizarin Crimson

Cadmium Red Lt

Cadmium Orange

Cadmium Yellow Lt

Perm Green Lt

Chrome Ox Green

Viridian

Ultramarine Blue

Cobalt Blue

Yellow Ochre

Transp Red Oxide

Burnt Sienna

Ivory Black

Palette Two:

Titanium White

Alizarin Crimson

Cadmium Red Lt

Cadmium Orange

Thalo Green

Ultramarine Blue

Yellow Ochre

Burnt Sienna

Palette Three:

White

Cadmium Red Med

Cadmium Red Lt

Cadmium Yellow Med

Sap Green

Viridian

Ultramarine Blue

Cobalt Blue

Cerulean Blue

Yellow Ochre

Raw Umber

Palette Four:

Titanium White

Alizarin Crimson

Cadmium Red Med

Transp Orange

Cadmium Yellow

Ultramarine Blue

Cobalt Blue

Cerulean Blue

Thalo Blue

Indigo

Yellow Ochre

PAINTING
AREA

Layout: When starting out most of us use whatever space is available. After three moves I now have the small space shown below. I'm happy with it.

The above desk easel is 20" x 26" and has 6 elevation points from flat to about 30 degrees (there are smaller sizes).

At left, this easel has a height adjustable canvas holding system. Wheels make it easy to move where needed.

REMEMBER - Good paintings can be made with much simpler and cheaper equipment.

I really like this paint and mixing area setup. It is plate glass on a sheet of light gray paper, backed by a thin sheet of hardboard. The edges of the glass have been beveled to avoid cuts. On top and left is an area to hold the colors being used. There are half-round indents (upper right) to keep small brushes separated. A solvent is used to clean the mixing area. Since I use water-mixable paints, cleanup is a breeze.

I picked up the essence of this idea from watching Richard Schmid's "November" video. Art lost a true master in the spring of 2021 when Richard passed away. One can do worse than studying his legacy.

Other items include paper towels or dentist's bibs for cleaning up. The latter are especially handy for outdoor painting as they have a water barrier to resist soak-throughs. And there are: palette knives for mixing, a solvent holder and a razor blade holder to occasionally clean the paint-holding area. Oh yes, the pliers. If you don't do a good job of cleaning the top of paint tubes, you likely will need them (OK, I'm guilty). Lastly, a solvent holder (a spray bottle for water-based paints), a brush cleaner and a handy place to store paint tubes.

BRUSHES
& BOXES

BRUSHES: There are a huge number of different brushes. They differentiate by size, shape, composition, media they will be used on, manufacturer and type of stroke desired. Advice and experimentation are the best ways of learning what suits each of us. I'll comment on a few things that have been helpful to me.

Brush notes are from left to right. Large sizes are useful for toning a canvas with color prior to starting the actual painting. Used with various angles and pressures, different affects can be made. The next three brushes show some bristle shapes. If used a bit long or hard, the bristles may loose their shape. Their original shape can be re-formed.

Wet the brush, then fold a semi-stiff piece of cardboard over it with the brush tip near the fold. A business card does well for this. Now put a spring clip over the card, positioning it so as to compress the brush tip. Leave it until it is thoroughly dry. Now the brush will consistently hold a nice edge in use. When the edge again gets too sloppy, repeat this process. Not a good idea for most watercolor brushes.

Now, what can organize those brushes and help keep their shape? There are lots of options, which cater to different needs, some providing space for storage of additional items.

left, a watercolor box with almost everything but watercolor paper.

Right, the box closed and its travel paint box open.

A Windsor & Newton foldable canvas brush holder. More different kinds of brushes show here.

These boxes are for carrying canvas painting boards, both unpainted ones and ones with wet paint on them. The lower ones includes separators, allowing it to be used with multiple different sized canvases. I believe there are other types that will accommodate thicker canvases.

There are boxes made to slow the drying of water-based paints. These come with a thin sponge on the bottom, with a glass mixing surface lying on the sponge. With the cover on the box and a bit of water on the sponge, these will keep the paint usable longer.

I am a fan of fan brushes. While not used often, they can do very nice things. The above is a 2" by 6" portion of a 9" by 12" painting. The multi-colored tree/bush on the left was finished off using one. By twisting it and varying the angle of brush-to-canvas and varying the pressure of the brush against the canvas, the delicate placement of the greens was accomplished. While possible using traitional brushes, the fan brush can do it more quickly and give a more realistic results.

WAY POINTS

Journey Way Points include observations, design criteria and/or other comments about some paintings. Sort of a problem resolution thing. These may be of interest to others in the early stages of their journey.

There is an Index page that shows which paintings have this information. Clicking on painting image will take you to it's Way Point. To reach the Index page, Click on the Go To Index button on the bottom of this page.

THERE'S MORE

Art books, workshops and videos are the best way to pursue the next phases of your journey. I do have some tips on other areas under way. Should time allow, I hope to complete them. But for me, it's now back to all that got pushed aside.

Last Update: 09/15/2024

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