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"Plein Air" Painting Tips

The following are tips that may help with your “plein air” painting.
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To begin with, you want to have a very good understanding of “values”. Values are the key to your paintings. You can only have three to four main values in your paintings. Remember: You are very poor in values and very rich in colors.

Squint down your eyes. Use the “magic” squint. Squint your eyes and try to simplify and reduce your shapes and values to three or four and your shapes to four or five. No more!

I always do a small sketch of the subject (3” X 4”) to organize my four to five main shapes and values. This is where I create my composition (refer to Payne’s book) I may move “things” around in the landscape. For example, change the patterns of trees, change the curvature of a mountain, play with patterns of the sky/clouds etc. Now I’ve become familiar with the landscape (or subject). I’ve got a good composition, a good pattern, a good value study, and solid four to five main shapes, be aware of your negative shapes. I am now ready to transfer or use the small pencil study to lay in my painting.

I start with very fluid wash of a dark umber or similar dark color. I lightly find reference points in the landscape and mark those on canvass so as not to get out of proportion in my drawing. The drawing is very important. Don’t lose yourself in the landscape (what is the area that I am painting). Suddenly your drawing things you didn’t want or you’re way out in left field when your drawing was only of the right field. So drawing is very important. I then proceed to sketch in lightly with the brush the “drawing” of the rest of the landscape image.

My next step is to “wash” or fill in, or “posterize” the four to five main shapes and values. This is a very important step and should be done accurately and quickly. This is why the small primary sketch comes in handy. You’ve become familiar with the subject and how you want to render it. Refer to your sketch. Remember that it is all about “relationships”. What I mean is that if you put down one color it is a color only on to itself until you add another color next to it. At this point it changes – it becomes lighter/darker, cooler/warmer. Hold up a black stick and white piece of paper to compare the color/value of the landscape to get a truer sense of how really dark or light an area is. How gray is the color, how warm is it, how blue is it etc. etc. Someone once said they put a white cloth in the landscape about 100 feet in front of them so that they would have something to compare the colors and values to.

Posterizing means to just go for the big areas. As if you were using construction paper to get the main big shapes by tearing sheets of paper in the right shape and value range. Once this is done your canvass should be completely covered in a light wash in the “average” values and basic shapes.

The next step is to build the painting. This now becomes fun. You’ve got the shapes, the composition, the values, and basic colors. Remember that at this point the darks carry your drawing and lights carry your colors. Paint thinly at first. Also error to the darkside on your values or colornotes. It is easier to lighten a dark than it is to darken a light. The reason being that if you try to darken a light area the underlying lighter paint will come to the surface and you’ll start to get a mess/mud. Remember that your darks make your lights. If you feel that you can’t get enough light in the lit area it’s usually because your adjacent darks are not right. Don’t try to come in with more white. That’s a sure cause for trouble.

In the shadow area keep all the colors in the same value ranges (this is why and understanding of values is so important). You can change the color/temperature, but not the value. Keep your values together. Remember you are poor in values and rich in colors. Stick to your drawing values stay with four to five main values max!!

This is the point when you start to add subtle changes to colors and build the pattern and texture of the painting. Keep an eye on the light and dark pattern. The shadow areas are devoid of light (for the most part) and hence devoid of texture. Keep these areas painted thinnly. The color and source of light. Remember that warm lights produce cool shadows and cool lights produce warm shadows.

Go back into the tree areas for example and start redefining negatively the space (birdholes). Clean your brush between each stroke. Mix your paint, get the value and color right, put it on with a meaning/definition and leave it! Move on to the next area.

Now you can start to build the texture towards the foreground. Add texture to your paint in the foreground. Bring in stronger contrast in the foreground. Keep the background contrast less dramatic. Watch your darks most inexperienced individuals will tend to paint to dark with much to variety of dark values. Understand the value scale. Most paintings are done in the higher value range, but in a low key of contrast. Many of the renaissance paintings were done in high key of contrast using the full value range. It takes control of your values and colors do to this properly.

I hope that the above was worth your reading time. Use the information and refer to it constantly. It will become an inherent dialog with yourself. Oh, by the way the way you know you are finished with a painting is simple.....when you’re finished making the corrections!

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