Today I'm sharing "Evening's Embrace," an 8x10 painting that demonstrates key principles about color mixing, composition, and a simple innovation that's completely transformed my video quality. This painting has an interesting genesis—it's based on a digitally enhanced reference that is based me of a classical landscape I've always admired. I can't even remember the original painter's name, though I think I featured him in one of my hundred days of Tonalism posts. What drew me to his original scene wasn't perfect accuracy to his painting, he had the essential elements: a hill, trees, and a sky with fluffy clouds. Obviously, we went in a different direction, I think this version is more appealing.

Expanding the Members Experience

Before we dive into the painting techniques, I want to update you on the content strategy that's been working well. The Substack approach is gaining traction—I now have some paying members, which is encouraging for something we're still refining. The format of publishing paid posts without email notifications, then following up with the free weekly post, seems to be hitting the right balance. What's exciting is being able to combine the transcript, video, and reference image all in one post, along with additional notes and insights that don't fit into YouTube's format. I’m also working to get ahead of the content creation process. By providing detailed transcripts on both my blog and Substack, I'm creating multiple touchpoints for Painters who want to learn more about my approach. The goal is building a content ecosystem where each piece supports the others.

The Cardboard Innovation

Before we even touched paint, I need to share a breakthrough that's been three months in the making. I've been battling haze and glare issues with my camera lens—it wasn't as big a problem with the Panasonic, but this full-frame camera has a much larger lens that catches light. Yesterday's experiment with a piece of cardboard as a lens shade has mostly eliminated the problem. It's not elegant, but the difference is dramatic. No haze, no glare—I couldn't be happier. Sometimes the best innovations are the simplest ones, and this piece of cardboard is going to become a permanent part of my setup.

Breaking Rules with Balanced Purpose

This composition does something that traditionally makes artists nervous: it places the main subject dead center. The winding path and central tree break the rule of thirds completely, yet the balance feels right. I had it set up as a 5x7 initially, but switching to 8x10 felt stronger. This is going to be pure Tonalism—big shapes, atmospheric depth, and a limited range of hues working together. It's a relief from the larger painting I'm working on, which has a lot of detail and uses more of the illustration part of my brain. Sometimes you need the freedom of just painting.

Color Strategy: Strategic Color Killing

Working tonally means embracing what I call "strategic color killing." The palette centered around familiar foundations: Mike's Gray (ivory black + titanium white) was essential, along with Mike's Green for the landscape areas. The key insight is that to achieve natural-looking colors, especially in atmospheric conditions, you often need to deliberately reduce chroma. It's less pretty in the mixing stage, but far more convincing in the final painting. I started with Mars yellow rather than jumping straight to the cadmium orange. Orange pushes things chromatically, while Mars yellow gives you a more controlled foundation. Then there's the comparison between my mixing red and actual cadmium—the difference is dramatic. That pure cadmium is like the mixing red "to the tenth power."

The White Rule and Paint Quality

Good rule of thumb: always hold off on white until you have to use it. I don't use it early—it kills color, chokes things up. But if you're strategic with it, that color killing can be very deliberate. To hit certain atmospheric colors, we have to kill the chroma. You can never get there with full saturation. I'm also happy to report that this new Mars black is working beautifully—much better than the Maimeri Classico I was struggling with. Sometimes paint quality makes all the difference, and this stuff from Windsor Newton is giving me the consistency I need.

Drawing with Paint

Rather than treating drawing and painting as separate phases, for this painting I used burnt umber mixed with Mars black to establish both the composition and the darkest values simultaneously. In a sense, we're getting two birds with one stone—accurate drawing and immediate value structure. The drawing phase also lets you work out any compositional issues early. I noticed I was creating what I call a "mistake tree"—something that looked awkward in the reference—so I adjusted as I went.

Progression and Modulation

The landscape areas demonstrate what I consider fundamental to Tonalist work: progression and modulation. These are your friends. Rather than painting flat areas of color, you're constantly varying both value and hue to create atmospheric depth. The grass isn't much different from the hill areas in terms of underlying color—just shifted in temperature and value. We're working in a pretty limited range of hue, but that's what creates the cohesive, atmospheric and tonal feeling.

Keeping It Loose and Enjoyable

One thing I've learned is the importance of keeping paintings loose and fun. When I get too serious or tight, anxiety creeps in and the work suffers. This session felt relaxed and natural—I'm quite happy with the result, this one just flowed. The finished piece captures that golden hour feeling when evening light embraces the landscape. Sometimes the best paintings come not from perfect references, but from trusting the process and letting the work evolve naturally.

Looking Ahead

The transcript and summary approach is proving valuable for providing detailed reference material for members. Having all this searchable content should help with discoverability over time—people searching for specific techniques will hopefully find these detailed explanations. Thanks for joining me today and until I come back with another video, take care, stay out of trouble, and God bless you and your family.

Mike

Full Session Transcript

Hello, how are you doing? You're probably enjoying your summer — oh wait, that's right, it's winter here. I actually came out to New Zealand in June of 2010. Boy, that was a big adjustment, going from summer to winter. If you're going to travel to New Zealand, do it in the fall.

By the way, you'll notice we have great lighting here today. I've been dealing with problems from haze — not so much the light itself, but light hitting the top of the lens. You'll love my innovation, which is this piece of cardboard over the top. Yesterday it was just paper, but the cardboard is looking much better.

Okay, that's what we're going to paint today. Let me make it a little bigger for you. It's not a huge reference — it's obviously got some digital work going on, but it's based on a scene by a painter I barely know. I can't remember his name.

I think I might have included him in one of my hundred days of Tonalism posts, even though the painting wasn't really Tonalist. But I've always loved this one painting. This doesn't really resemble it except there's a hill, trees, and a blue sky with a big fluffy white cloud. Obviously, we went a different direction.

I think this reference is more appealing — one of the things I think is cool is it's not just all orange. We're going down into the grays, which is pretty neat.

I'm working on a big painting right now, but I'm not going to do that today because things aren't lining up right with my live marketing day tomorrow. I've got a whole other channel — a secret channel. Don't worry about it, you wouldn't care about it. It's all INFJ stuff. I don't think many of you are into that. But it keeps me busy.

Anyway, I've got this big painting with the drawing done sitting over there, but it's not dry. I could have proceeded, but I would have been doing the sky today, then drawing tomorrow, then I could do the land. But then I'm hitting Sunday, and that land is going to look terrible.

You can see there's no glare today — I'm so happy about that. It wasn't as big a problem with the Panasonic camera, but this one has a really big lens, a big full-frame deal.

Let's talk about this painting. The reference is already beautiful, right? So we can make a painting from that. This composition is right in the dead center, which is breaking the rules, but I think I have everything balanced really nice.

You can see I had it set up as a five by seven, which gave us a little more over here, but then I thought, no — eight by ten. This is strong, and this is going to be Tonalism. It's just going to be big shapes.

It's a relief from the thing I'm painting now, which has a lot of details. I'm kind of using the illustration part of my brain for that, which is fine, but it's a lot more work than just painting.

Let's do some color mixing right now before we start painting. It's not my preference, but I think it's a good call.

Setting Up the Palette

We have titanium white — I'm going to get some titanium buff in there. Yellow ochre, Mars yellow, raw umber, Mike’sgreen, though we're not really going to use much green here. Cadmium orange, mixing red — that's a Winton cadmium hue, but this is actual cadmium. Look at the difference — oh my god, this is so much stronger.

We'll have burnt umber all over the show. Permanent green light, dioxazine purple, Prussian blue, which I'm not going to use — I'm going to use gray instead. Ivory black, and then Mike's Gray.

Mike's Gray is ivory black mixed with titanium white — the titanium white that's mixed with zinc, which is most titanium white. Look on the back of the tube. And here's Mike's Green.

These two together make pretty close to an equivalent of brown ochre. I have a tube of brown ochre, but I don't need to bring it in here because it's got this cool cherry-red thing that I don't want.

Color Mixing Strategy

For the clouds, I'm pulling in a touch of red and a little bit of white, but I want to keep some identity for now. The mixing red is very flexible — this will just turn into a pile of red, but that's a wonderful color. It's very useful.

There's too much saturation in there, so we're going to knock it out with some of this. That's less pretty, but it's more natural and that'll be better.

This is quite a bit like the color in the grass as well, but this is going to be a tonal painting working in a pretty limited range of hue. You might think to start with the orange, but I'm going to start with the Mars yellow, then use the orange. Orange is going to push that chroma.

Good rule of thumb for you: always hold off on that white until you have to use it. I don't use it early — it kills color, chokes things up. But if you're strategic with it, the amount of color killing can be very strategic. To hit that color, we have to kill it. We can never get there with full chroma.

Drawing and Foundation Work

I'm going to do the drawing portion with burnt umber mixed with a little Mars black. In a sense, we're getting two birds with one stone — we're getting our darkest darks in and we're doing our drawing.

The drawing is essentially done now. We're establishing the composition while getting those important dark values placed.

Working the Sky

Starting with the sky colors. This stuff is great (Mars Black)— I was worried I'd have to get into some gamblin, but this is working well. Maybe even better than the gamblin.

I've had a real problem with blue casts in the shadows. I know I'm not painting like that. I'm able to adjust for the photos I take, but not so much for the video. Very excited about yesterday's discovery with this piece of cardboard — no haze, no haze. That's wonderful.

Building the Landscape

The strategy is I'm going to flatten areas with burnt umber. I'm going to do it tonally — that's how I'm going to work. We've got areas that are more greenish, but compared to what else is coming, that's just a bit greenish. I'm going to add a little bit of umber, which is going to take care of any greenness.

Using progression and modulation — these are your friends. We're orange over here, that's going to be a bit of a pain, but we're up for it. These two colors together are giving me a whole range of different oranges.

I'm starting with the Mars yellow, then bringing in the orange. It's not the color I'm headed for initially, but this is why I don't need all these different tube colors. These two together give me a whole range of different oranges.

Working the Grass Areas

The grass isn't much different from the hill areas. Maybe bringing in some actual cadmium to wake things up. See, that's like... whatever that mixing red is, this cadmium is to the tenth power.

I'm being strategic about where I place the brighter areas, thinking about how the eye will move through the composition. The modulation keeps things interesting rather than flat areas of color.

Final Water and Adjustments

For the water, we're going to use this gray. I'm just going to brown it up a little. These colors are echoing what's in the sky, which creates harmony throughout the piece.

I'm quite happy with this. Usually when I'm serious, I feel a little anxious, but I'm pretty happy with it. Keep it loose, keep it fun, keep it free.

We're done — time to take a photo.

Evening's Embrace 8x10 LIVE!