Oil Painting

When I was learning to paint, living where I do on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, boats of all sorts were a readily available subject. I ended up painting a lot of boats. I have always been drawn to the water and boats were an excuse to paint water. People who know boats will not accept a painting of a boat that looks like she will sink. Over the years, through trial and error, I have learned how to render a boat that looks seaworthy.

Whether elegant sailing vessels or battered fishing craft, boats are a challenging subject. Personally, I find it easier to accurately portray a boat than a building. Mind you, I paint boats far more often than architecture. As a result, boats come more easily to me. It is a matter of practice and familiarity with the subject.

When asked “How can I learn to paint boats like you?” my reply is only-partially tongue in cheek “Paint a lot of boats. Make lots of mistakes, learn from them, eliminate those mistakes from your painting vocabulary and finally what you are left with is the ability to paint a good boat.”

In our house we actually have a term for a poorly rendered boat. We say it is suffering from “Wonky Boat Syndrome” Sometimes it is terminal condition. Most usually a terminally wonky boat is suffering from a fatal error in drawing.

The key to portraying anything correctly is taking the time to look at it closely and to identify the relationships that make it the shape it is. In other words, the key is knowing how to draw. Whether you use a pencil or a brush loaded with juicy oil paint, you need to be able to see the shapes and get them down in front of you.

I learned how to paint in watercolour long before I took up oil paints. In watercolour, pre-drawing is pretty much crucial. In oil painting drawing is still key to rendering a good boat. The blessing with oils is that I can start with a loose representation of the shapes in the approximate right place. As I work I can move them around, correcting as I go. Small adjustments make the difference between a boat that will float and one that would sink.

Here’s how I go about rendering a boat.

I take a good look at the darned thing. I really look at it. I rough in the shape. This next step is the important bit: I look at the boat again and compare it to the shape I just made. I fix the most obvious error and then I compare it again. Fix it again, compare again. Over and over, until I am done. In words this sounds simple. In practice it’s a bit more challenging, especially if the boat is twisting at a mooring.

That is a problem with boats. They move. The tide goes out and suddenly you notice the boat is several feet lower from the top of the wharf than it was before. (Or several meters if you are in my beloved Bay of Fundy.) The wind comes up and shifts the boat from a bow view to a stern view. The skipper comes along, hauls anchor and sails away. Drawing a preliminary sketch in a sketchbook can help, learning to capture shapes quickly can help, too.

I painted this 8″ x 10” portrait of a boat from shore as it waggled back and forth in the harbor, tied to the orange buoy ball. While boats do move while moored, they tend to pass through the same position repeatedly which helps. Luckily this one did not sail away as I was painting it. I did end up having to move the mast over an inch to the right from where I had initially put it. (Can’t do that in watercolor!)

Here are some common reference points that I check as I draw a boat.

I get the big shape right first, paying attention to relationship of the height of the hull to the length of the hull. Is it 3 times as long as it is high? 5 times? Get that correct first. Then I include the cabin, if there is one. Rough it in, paying attention to size relationships again. Is it the same height as the hull? How much of the length of the boat does it extend?

In this painting, the closest boat is approximately 4.5 times as long as the height of the hull at the bow. The front face of the cabin is slightly more than half the height of the hull and is set back from the bow about the same distance as it is tall. The cabin shape ends at about the midpoint from bow to stern. I pay attention to these relationships, and yes, if I am painting outside, I stand there with my brush in my hand and I hold it up and I measure.

Then I start looking at the finer points.

Look closely at the mast, if you are painting a sailboat. In your rendering, does the mast come up from the centerline of the boat (ie does it sit in the middle between the two sides?) It should.

Look at the line of the bow and the stern (that’s the rear). Are they straight up and down? Are they slanted one way or the other? Different boats, different angles. Pay attention. Look closely.

Pay attention to all these little details. Look at what you are painting. Even if you “know” boats, look at the one that is in front of you. Compare what you have drawn to what you are seeing. If something looks wrong, measure. Keep measuring until you find where the problem has crept in.

Is the waterline straight? Boats sit in the water. The water surface is flat. Even though boats are full of curves everywhere, water still follows the laws of gravity. If looking at a boat from the side, the waterline will appear straight and run parallel to the horizon. (It can be broken up by waves, but overall should be straight.) If the boat is at an angle receding away from you this becomes more complicated… Then you have to look closely. Measuring helps. Hold your brush up in front of you and line it up against the waterline of the boat. This shows you the degree of angle if there is one, and if there is any degree of curve. You’ll be surprised how often there is no curve when you thought there was one.

This ship is over 63′ long and pointing almost directly at us. Despite that, her waterline looks relatively flat, because this picture is from just about water level.

Where is the boat in relation to the horizon?

Remember that the horizon line, the true horizon, where the sky meets the water, will always be pretty much at your eye level. This means if you are at the water’s edge, the horizon might be just above or even behind the boat you are rendering. If you are up a hill, or on a high pier, the boat will be further below the horizon line, so much so (depending on how high up you are) that you may not even be able to include the horizon in your picture.

In this next drawing the vantage point is higher than that from the painting above.

(Conversely, where are you in relation to the boat?)

The boats are depicted with a vantage point from the road running above the shore, so they all fall below the horizon.

Placing your boats correctly in relation to the horizon line becomes especially important when you are painting a group of boats. This is to avoid that sub-genre of Wonky Boat Syndrome, the Tiny Boat Illusion. Perspective applies to boats just as much as it does to buildings in a city. If you have two identical boats, one near and one far, they will maintain proportionally the same distance from the horizon line.

Here I’ve drawn in some perspective lines:

Then I added another boat, one that is proportionally out of place.

Do you see that it is actually the same size as the left-most boat?

Finally, here is an illustration showing the relative ship height and the horizon. Those marked in red, you will note that the height of the boat is roughly double the space between the top of the boat and the horizon. The center boat, marked in green, does not match that proportion and hence looks like a tiny boat.

I have given a laundry list of some of the problems I have seen most often in painting boats. I have certainly made all of these mistakes and more. The important thing is to learn from them and move on. That is, after all, what creates experience.

There is plenty written about rendering boats accurately.  For another perspective on how to avoid missized boats, please visit James Gurney’s post on the “Toy Boat Problem”

I’m not a naturally patient person. I tend to want to skip the hard part and get to the results, but learning to make good paintings is a process that takes time. Beginners are often surprised by how difficult drawing and painting actually is. Layers of fluid brush strokes in a fine painting give the impression of easy spontaneity, when in fact, the artist made innumerable, calculated decisions throughout the process.

When I went to art school in the 70s and 80s I was surprised by the lack of instruction in my studio classes. We had critiques and discussions about design concepts, but technical training was curiously absent. This approach was evidently based on the idea that classical instruction would stifle or hinder creative expression.

Compelled to undertake this approach, I abandoned what I’d learned from an excellent high school art teacher, and began slathering pigments onto large canvases, using sweeping gestures and full chroma color. I imagined that somehow the innate qualities within me would find their way onto the canvas. This was great fun at first. The freedom to move the paint around spontaneously was invigorating. It was like being a kid again. Eventually, the newness wore off, and I became bored with my limitations.

After college I got a job at a gallery that exhibited some extraordinary representational paintings – the kind of paintings that had inspired me to become an artist in the first place. Next to these, my work seemed ridiculous. I held to the notion of my professors, that if I just kept painting, my work would naturally develop on its own. This proved to be untrue. I was stuck, lacking the skills to do what I envisioned in my mind, and the resources to obtain those skills. The university had my money and I had very little to show for my investment.

A move and change in circumstances led me to lay aside my brushes for a number of years. When I finally resumed painting, I did so with intention. I approached it with the attitude of a novice working within a set of boundaries. I took some classes and began studying painting at the most fundamental level – learning and practicing each of the basic principles of design until I gained some competency. As I could afford it, I purchased good books and dvd’s by master artists – not just to add them to my library, but to use them as textbooks and teachers. Most of all, I practiced and practiced what I learned and gradually saw my work improve. Rather than stifling my creativity, I found the principles I was learning served to liberate it.

The learning process can be frustrating, but the reward of finally grasping a concept is amazing. It’s like finding the key to a long- locked door. I remember the day I understood how to use color temperature to achieve the illusion of light and form. I was painting a lichen-covered branch. “Eureka!” I thought, “I finally get this!” One door that stayed stubbornly locked for years was in the area of design. No matter how much I had learned about composition, those bits of knowledge were not enough to really crack the code for me. It was earlier this year, in a workshop with John Lasaster, that the pieces finally fell into place and I came away with understanding and tools I could use!

I like the term “artistic journey”. If you look at it as a journey, you’ll keep moving forward and your work will get stronger. If you look at it as a destination, you might put down roots too soon and miss out on all the potential waiting down the road.

I will quote Edgar Payne in
closing:

“When the artist has schooled and disciplined himself to the point where he can respond to natural impulses, the real enjoyment in painting begins.”

We want to be alive, energized, and excited about life and our growth as an artist. Is there a process based on current psychological science that makes it easier to attain and sustain higher energy in our lives and our art? Are there ways around fear and boredom? And, is the process accessible to all of us? The resounding answer is “yes”  based on science.

Awareness, curiosity and focused processes (effort not talent) will blast through limiting stories and beliefs that have taken root in our unconscious. Einstein was a big believer in curiosity and imagination and concluded everything is energy. Robert Henri maintained “art is a footprint of a life well lived.” Books by Harvard and Stanford professors lay stepping stones for high achievement. If through awareness you find your inspiration (what you would love to say in art), use your imagination (how you would want to say it in your own authentic voice), and take motivated action through a process (flow) both intrinsic and extrinsic results can be achieved. How?     

First, increase your curiosity about you, become a explorer of your likes, feelings, and what you love. You can only control in life yourself and your perceptions and if you focus on your inner workings above all else, your beliefs in yourself will incrementally change for a improved life and art. Your perceptions filter your thoughts, and as the brilliant Einstein said, “The world as we have created is a process of our thinking, it cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”       

Second, alter your perceptions to enjoy the process. The journey will always be there, and you never reach THE pinnacle. The journey can be motivated by fear, or by inspiration, imagination and motivated action. IT IS YOUR CHOICE AND IN YOUR CONTROL ALONE. Your primary motivation to create art should be intrinsic benefits, e.g. it will give you pleasure and meaning, not primarily extrinsic benefits like sales quotas. (HINT: there are lots of motivators at one time, the key is what is primary.)

Third, explore your inspirations. Focus primarily on intrinsic inspirations vs extrinsic. Why? Because they are the only things you can control and they alone create sustainable happiness. John Wooden, the UCLA coach won 10 out of 12 NCAA titles. A feat that has never been equaled in any sport. His primary thrust was to inspire his players to perform to the best of their ability; he never told them to win. Wooden stated after his career that what he missed the most was team practices. He was solely focused on the process in the journey. The art world is similar to other careers, it has its share of unfairness, nepotism, prejudice, clicks, pandering, and egotism (surprise). Control of enjoying your journey is only within you.     

Fourth, imagining your successes will make you feel really great, but it won’t achieve anything. Studies show you must both imagine successes AND overcoming obstacles to them. For example, how will you achieve enjoying the easel for ____ hrs a week? You must change your perspective from art is work to it is a privilege, a meaningful joyous process filled with discoveries allowing you to birth your authentic voice, it gets you in a flow, a mentally healthy state, not to mention the many satisfying connections with people.

Studies show that challenging growth is a pillar to sustainable happiness and as the founder of the Montessori schools said, “nothing is more relaxing than engaging in an agreeable task.” Hedonism does not lead to sustainable happiness. Motivated action from inspiration and imagination excites you to paint. You will have something exciting to say if you are living with a curious energy. And according to Robert Henri if you have something to say you will find a way.

In “The Achievement Habit”, by Bernard Roth, a professor at Stanford University, Roth says to always err to the side of action, even when not 100% sure of direction, he states more answers are found in action. According to Tal Ben-Sahar, a professor at Harvard, perfectionism is unhealthy, so act and do the best you can. (HINT: Don’t get lost in abstract ideas like a great piece of art is always better than the sum of the parts or that you are creating universal symbols or how will you be judged.)     

Imagination is a key to growth. Think of how you would love for your painting to look and imagine better and new ways for you to express your authentic voice. Go beyond your boundaries and limits, it excites because its risky and edgy and prevents boredom. Try new tools, change shapes, colors, textures, scrape off, repaint. Make many mistakes, the more mistakes the faster the growth. Mistakes are not failing but learning opportunities, quitting the exploration process is the only failure. (HINT: watch great videos, and get in a supportive environment and attend positive workshops that encourage curiosity, discovery and exploration and where no one ever judges you (check with past students to verify the teacher is great), and the teacher pushes you beyond your limits. Great teachers inspire, are genuinely concerned you grow, explain the why and pour out every tool they have to help you, and yet require you to do the work.    

Like all growth, your ability to recognize great art rises as your awareness increases; savor great art. Study it, live with it. After a while we all become competent enough to paint a scene, later you will inflict more of your authentic artistic voice with more of your imaginative skills and it will be richer. If you keep exploring and trying new things your repertoire of tools will increase. You want the attitude of hell yeah I am going to (not trying to) paint this new way. It may take a while for new methods to advance from crapola to really cool so perceive it as an exciting journey.    

New processes need balance. Too much growth is anxiety and too little is boredom, the perfect balance is flow, which is a joy-filled journey. 

When reaching a certain level of accomplishment you start to get somewhat serious about your work and the excitement may start to dwindle. The antiserum is to bring your “old learning playful Beginner” back in to sit alongside the somewhat accomplished  “Experienced You”. This Beginner was who got you started and who knows how to enjoy the process. The best beginners had little judgment and took many risks, therefore accelerated growth.     

The Experienced You naturally has a bit more ego and naturally becomes more concerned about what others think. The antidote is to go deeper into yourself and what you can control. Wooden’s teams were trained not to focus on the other teams, he did little scouting but instead focused on what they could do to become the best they could be. It’s a great freedom to say I will focus primarily on my own authentic voice, and let everything and everybody else slide into the background. Riding your own horse into the horizon without a parade is the freedom you wanted when you started the artistic journey. If honors come your way, enjoy and appreciate, and then saddle up and keep on riding. You know who you are when you don’t care much what others think. Dolly Parton explained why she wasn’t offended by dumb blonde jokes, “…because I know I am not dumb. I also know I am not blonde.”

 Since this book is out of print, I leave you with James Reynolds comments on what this renowned artist thinks makes a good painting.

The above guidelines are useful aids and other tools from more advanced artists always make painting easier, we can all learn something from everyone. I enjoy discovering how workshop attendee artists learn quicker and easier. As I watch and develop I discover more tools that make it easier on me and students. The interesting thing is there are always new ones waiting to be discovered. A great quote by Joseph Cambell author of the learned book “The Power of Myth”, “the big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.”

Always be risking new things so the adventure is off the charts. Live on the edge and create art that goes a little farther and a little different, that is where to find the adventure and excitement. Do not deny the world the opportunity to bask in your brilliance.

For more tips on attitude, click here for Bill’s other blog posts.

There’s not much I love doing more than painting, but cross-country skiing comes close. There are many beautiful days in the winter when I‘m torn between either painting or skiing, wishing for more hours of daylight to get them both in. Even when I’m not at the easel, my mind inevitably wanders to painting as I ski on the picturesque trails. As I was gliding through beautiful landscapes and planning my next set of snow paintings last week, I thought about the parallels between skiing and painting. Here are some lessons learned from the ski trails that can be applied to painting:

1. Learn from a pro:

My husband and I first attempted skate skiing when we moved to Alaska. Determined to learn on our own, we headed out to the trails and strapped on our skis….only to spend the entire day with frustrating (and often comical) results. A weekend ski clinic did wonders as we were taught the basics by an expert who truly understood all the elements of good technique.

As with skiing, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort in art by finding a good instructor who can walk you through the basics of painting, taking some of the mystery out of the craft. Yes, an artist can be self-taught, but most times the process takes a lot longer and good input from competent professionals will speed you on your way to making your own art without stumbling over technical problems at the beginning.

2. Don’t expect to be good if you don’t do it a lot:

The long Alaskan winters allowed me lots of time to ski. Here in the radically shorter winters of California, I’m skiing a fraction of the amount that I used to. Consequently, I can’t expect to win any races or to see great improvement in my technique.  

As with skiing, don’t expect to get better at painting if you don’t work at it on a consistent basis. Practice really does make perfect, and getting into the habit of painting nearly every day will help you to see gains more quickly.

3. Those who make it look easy have put in their time

Every now and then when I’m out plein air painting, a passer-by will comment, “You make it look so easy!” (I always have to resist the impulse to reply, “Well I certainly fooled you, didn’t I?”) As I’ve said many times before, I don’t think painting is easy; I think painting is really hard, but aspects of it have gotten easier over years of repetition and practice. I’ve been guilty of watching elite skiers fly past me and feeling a pang of jealousy at the apparent ease with which they ski, but I know that they’ve put in countless hours of practice to get that good.

Painting takes enormous patience and perseverance and nothing happens overnight. It helps to realize that, just like an athlete, you have to been in for the long haul in order to develop your skills and gain competency

4. It’s not the falling down, it’s the getting up that matters

Let’s face it: no matter how good we get, at some point every skier falls and every painter fails. The old skiing adage, “if you’re not falling down, you’re not learning anything,” applies to painting as well. In order to grow, we have to push ourselves to do things that that are risky and learn from our mistakes. I could just ski the flat trails or paint easy subject matter, but where would that get me? I’d be a mediocre skier and a ho-hum painter.

Although there have been many times of frustration when I’ve wanted to unhook my skis and storm off the trails or chuck my painting into the woods and head home, I’ve learned that I have to channel that negative energy into something positive in order to grow. Much like an athlete analyzes videos of his/her performance to look for ways to improve, take those paintings that didn’t hit the mark back to the studio and give them a detailed critique to learn from your errors. Remember that it’s never a failure if you’ve had a brush in your hand and have been painting with full concentration and intent. If you try, you either succeed or you learn. Challenging yourself to the literal hills of skiing and the metaphorical hills of art will force you to conquer new techniques and overcome fears, making you better at your craft overall.

5. Fear will get you nowhere, but overconfidence will make you fall on your face

We’ve all seen the skier stuck at the top of a hill, frozen with fear of the downslope ahead. Staring at a blank canvas can elicit that same kind of paralysis. The worry of making a mistake can be overwhelming, but you’ve got to start somewhere. Take a deep breath and make that first mark. Remember that errors can always be corrected and that the only thing worse than bringing home a bad painting is not doing a painting at all.  But don’t get so overconfident that you’re like that skier who flies down the mountain without a care in the world, only to do an “Agony of Defeat” crash into the snow. Be sure to carefully think out your approach to the painting.

Anyone who has ever taken one of my workshops knows that I’m fanatical about thumbnails: they are the roadmap to the painting that makes everything else easier. Just a few minutes of sketches and planning can save you from falling flat on your face.

 6. No matter what happens, it’s a great day out there

No matter how many times I’ve fallen or how lousy my painting turns out, at the end of a day outside I always take a moment to look around and be grateful for the opportunity to spend some time outdoors. A day in nature is a gift not to be taken for granted. A positive attitude goes a long way in all endeavors, especially painting, so take the time to be thankful for what you have already accomplished and to think of productive and positive ways to improve yourself.

Click here for tips on painting snow in my blog post, “Snow Day”

When I started this journey of being an artist, I didn’t realize how many different kinds of artists or artist markets exist.  I am not talking about styles of art, realism verse abstractionism or folk verses traditional.  I mean artists who focus on local/regional content only, those who are driven by social/political issues, those who seek to be nationally or internationally connected, those who produce work only for its aesthetic beauty, those who are driven by cultural/ethnic content, those who seek out new and innovative approaches and cutting-edge techniques, those who just want to paint whatever comes their way, etc.   I struggle, as most artists do, with identifying what, which market I want to be a part of. So I ask myself the question what kind of artist do I want to be and what unique contribution can I make to the field?
Do I want to be a portrait painter, a landscape artist, or an equine painter, consistently producing the same kind of artwork, using the same media in the same style?  As I looked closer at art history, I realized that famous and not so famous artists did not stick to one subject matter, one style or one media.  Pablo Picasso, for example, painted all kinds of subject matters, worked with clay, created etchings, made sculptures, and produced drawings.  According to The Art Story.org “Picasso had an eclectic attitude to style, and although, at any one time, his work was usually characterized by a single dominant approach, he often moved interchangeably between different styles – sometimes even in the same artwork.”  Yet consistency is supposed to be the hallmark of an artist work.

If we continue with the example of Picasso, we see that over a lifetime he was anything but consistent. He was, however, consistent during certain time periods. Thus we can identify his Rose or his analytical cubism period. However, none of these periods lasted very long, some for two years, others for 10 years. I once read that consistency in artwork is based on six elements; style, palette, subject matter, theme, medium, and presentation, and while you needn’t have all six elements in your work to be consistent your work should exhibit at least three or four of these elements. Perhaps the answer is consistency in a particular body of work and not consistency over a lifetime. Will consistency help you develop a unique contribution to the field?

How exclusive can one be when there are thousands of artists out there striving to be ‘unique’? In Picasso’s case, it was his contribution of seeing form in a different way, cubism. He was influenced by a number of sources, other artists and cultures. And he worked to step away from many of the academic conventions of his time.   So even though he was an excellent draftsman and could render in a classical manner, he chose to see things differently. So ‘unique contribution’ is important if your interest is in transforming the field, turning it on its ears. But what if you just want to paint, what could be your unique contribution? Could it be theoretical exploration, a new way of visualizing an idea or notion, a different way of developing a composition, etc.? While these are all interesting concepts, they take lots of time to explore, develop and perfect. Wasn’t it Chuck Close who refused to exhibit his work until he had perfected his technique?  But what can an artist do especially if s/he has to eat, make money to buy supplies, support their art habit? Do you ‘go with the flow’ and create work that is trendy so it can sell? Or do you take the time no matter what to explore, to do work that connects the past and feeds the future, to produce work that is truly unique? Which are you?

So now I come back to the questions at hand, what kind of artist do I want to be and what unique contribution can I make to the field?   Even though I have selected oil painting as my major medium and figurative art as my content, I enjoy painting birds, horses, still life arrangements, which might include fruit, shoes, candies, bowls, etc., landscapes, and whatever I find appealing.  I feel that the skills I use in painting people are applicable to painting landscapes.  I might have to work a little harder at landscape painting, but the principles are the same.  And what I learn from painting landscapes, especially plein air landscapes, I apply to my figurative work.
As for consistency, I personally find it hard to stay with just one subject matter for consistency sake.  So I focus on creating series or bodies of work that allow me to explore different elements of ideas or related subject matter. One series may focus on a particular subject matter and a special palette while another might focus on composition and a theme. What remains most consistent is my medium, oil painting, my style, loose brush strokes, and my theme, people.   As an artist who started her journey late in life, I am not sure I have the time to explore the notions of a truly unique contribution to the field of painting because as I said before it takes lots of time to explore, experiment, and just play. Therefore, I have determined, that my unique contribution, while not earth changing, is really about my voice and vision. The scenes I select to paint, my personal vision of what is important in a scene, my unique voice of expressing my subject matter, the internal logic I use in developing my compositions.   Do these choices come naturally? No, not necessarily, I am always looking at what other artists past and present have and are doing, how they manned brushstrokes, the color palettes they use, the compositional arrangements they select. I use what I learn from them sparingly, because creativity is, “knowing how to hide your sources.” While this might not change the face of painting within the next century, it is what I enjoy doing. How about you?