The Quiet Path 5x7
This little 5×7 came out just great - I wish I’d painted it bigger! I’ve been doing a lot of 8×10s lately, and you know, you’ve got to sell the 8×10s for a bit more. That’s just reality - you’ve got to use something as criteria for why one painting costs more than another, whether that’s time, size, or both.
The Quiet Path 5x7
Riffing on George Inness
In essence, this is really a bit of a riff on an Inness painting. We got miles away from where George was in his original, but there’s a bit of the soul of his work in this. The two trees with the path - in George’s version, he had one big tree, some trees off to the side, and no path that I know of, maybe just a tiny path with no destination. That’s the thing I really like to have if I can - a bit of a place to go. I’m the king of the distant lake and the path, and I’m happy with that.
Embracing the Cliches
You could say I’m working the cliches, and obviously I am - but I’m doing it in the spirit of an artist who’s expressing themselves. There’s a reason why cliches are what they are: they’re powerful metaphors that you can use as part of your artistic language to express yourself. Don’t think you’re creating anything original - nobody has for quite a while. Painting was reinvented in the 1800s, then basically destroyed a bit, then built up again in the 20th century. There’s nothing new being done, nothing new about anything I’m doing here, except I wasn’t even painting in the 20th century. I didn’t start painting until this century, and it’s me painting - and that’s always going to be new, always going to be fresh and a bit of a revelation. Don’t let anything like a cliche stop you. I used to avoid painting things like paths or sunsets because I thought, “Oh god, there were so many horrible sunset paintings around when I came up.”
Technical Notes and Tips
Working on a nice bit of hardboard - very thin MDF actually, which I kind of favor in these smaller sizes. My tube of cadmium yellow just got very dry - all the oil seeped out ages ago, and it’s just so expensive. Pro Tip: What I’ve been doing is mixing it with a little bit of Hansa yellow (acrylic yellow), and that’s been working great. If you get a dry tube of paint, you can mix it with something that’s not as dry. Hansa yellow is kind of like cadmium yellow except it’s more transparent.
The Brief: Holding Back from Black
One of my briefs on this painting was to hold back from the blackest of the black. I know my paintings tend to go very dark, so I’m attempting to work a lot quicker. I don’t want to go over strokes as much - I want to just leave things. I’m more content to leave more of the board coming through, more of the darks coming into the drawing area. This painting was incredibly successful in that regard, if I don’t say so myself.
The Foliage Challenge
The real challenge with this kind of scene is the foliage over the sky. One of the big distinctions from what I’ve been doing in the past is I couldn’t help but try and define that transition, and I would try to define it artfully. But here I’m not actually defining much in that drawing stage. It starts getting somewhat defined when the sky comes in, then the rest when the foliage comes in - all of it fairly loose: the sky fairly loose, the foliage fairly loose, and the underpainting fairly loose. This is very much inspired by people like Camille Corot, who would keep his stuff loose, especially in the transition areas of foliage over sky - one of the toughest things to paint. It’s especially tough in this sort of circumstance where you’re in a kind of shadowy space and it’s light on the other side, so anything against that light tends to take on a bit of an edgy quality.
The Loose Approach Philosophy
It’s taken me years to get this adept at dealing with foliage transitions. I think I’m doing a way better job of it now since I’ve started taking this more loose approach where I’m trying not to over-define things at any point in the process. The definition should come about as a result of the painting process itself, rather than you saying “this is going to be black or white, this is going to be on or off.” You can hold off on that and just deal with it with the gradations of paint.
Brushwork Insights
As you’re painting along, you have several different things going on with the brush:
1. Shape of the Brush This is very much influenced by how much you clean your brushes. I’m using filberts on this - they’re great because they have a little toe at the end which is like one size brush, they have an almost beveled edge which is another size brush, you’ve got the flat end, and you can press down and the whole thing becomes kind of a larger brush.
2. Amount of Paint in the Brush And the relative viscosity of the paint - that’s where the medium comes in, and that’s something that’s always very strategic to me.
3. Brush Pressure This is directly related to your sense of how much paint is in the brush. That’s one reason why I’m always harping about getting a lot of experience as a painter - you’re learning what your brush will do with different amounts of paint.
4. Direction and Grip Sometimes I’m holding the end of the brush, sometimes the middle, sometimes somewhat like a pencil. Each one combined with the pressure, the direction, the shape of the brush, and the viscosity of the paint will determine the sorts of strokes that are coming down.
5. Frequency of Strokes How many strokes you’re putting down. One thing I’ve been trying to do here is leave things alone.
The Art of Leaving Things Alone
Leaving things alone has been an ongoing process for me for my whole painting career, and it’s just getting more and more extensive to the point where I may end up like George Inness doing these super loose, barely able to tell what it is kind of paintings because I’m so into the abstract quality of it all.
But I think for me, I want you to be able to see what it is, I want you to get the emotive quality, and things like using your brush in an appropriate way are all gonna help you express yourself.
For More In-Depth Content:
YouTube Members Area: Get access to reference images, palette layouts, and detailed transcriptions of each painting session
My Book: “Landscape Painting the Tonalist Way” contains 13 years of accumulated knowledge built up working in a tonalist manner
This loose, expressive approach to landscape painting shows how embracing traditional subjects with personal authenticity can create fresh, meaningful work that speaks to both the painter and the viewer.
Cheers,
Mike