'Sunset Grove'
[Click image to see larger version]
Sergio Lopez
Sunset Grove (Santa Rosa, California), 2015
Oil on canvas (unverified), w24" x h16"
From the artist's blog
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Continuing the genre introductions. This week would have been the animal genre1, but I already made you sit through a week of animal paintings, so we'll skip over that and maybe circle back to a couple points at the end of all this.
So onward and upward, to landscape. I am busting at the seams to talk about landscapes, but since this is just an intro and 'landscape painting' isn't hard to understand from a viewer's perspective, I will endeavor not to dump everything I've ever thought about this on your lap at once. Long story short, I adore landscape painting2, am regrettably the pits at it, but the adoration makes sure that it's one of the areas I try/have tried hardest to improve in. It also makes sure that I have lots and lots of favorite artists/pieces that aren't even going to be glanced at this week, which hurts, but I shall deal3.
Once again, for completeness: 'Landscape'4 = any work which primarily focuses on the portrayal of a "scenic" (outdoor) view. This can include all sorts of stuff; trees, fields, mountains and the like are common, but 'seascapes', for instance, are also a recognized variant.
Above is a piece by contemporary artist Sergio Lopez from California5, and I just wanted to point out a basic issue that confronts a lot of modern landscape painters (modern artists in general, for that matter). Namely: how much to work from life (called 'plein air'), and how much to work from photos/in the studio. In theory, working wholly from life is best, because it lets you capture atmosphere and color that you just can't get back later, and the looser, more rapid brushstrokes required to work from life give the work a spontaneous vitality that is likewise extremely difficult to replicate after the fact.
In practice, though, starting a work in the field (or at least planning a studio piece by starting with on-location studies) and then taking the painting/photos/studies back to the studio to finish is a common approach, because it lets the artist take a more thoughtful approach to the composition, to the color harmonies, and to any changes that might deviate from reality but which would improve the artwork. To put the problem bluntly would require heartfelt obscenities, but seriously, working completely from life and ending up with something that is 'finished' at the desired (preferably god-like) level of quality is just son-of-a-mother hard to do, and bless your heart if you try to do everything that way.
But most artists are of course quite courteous and professional beasts, so commentary on this problem tends to come out like Lopez's blurb on 'Sunset Grove':
"This painting was done from a mixture of life and studio photographs. Working completely from life has its disadvantages, it's a little harder to spend time on the drawing because time is of the essence out there. [And] If you're trying to draw with color, you have to make sure it's the right color as you put it down."
Again, the basic REDACTED problem in a nutshell6.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Animal painters are/were known as 'animaliers' (an-i-MAL-yays). There's no bigger point to that, it's just a word that rolls nicely around the mouth.
2. I'm still out-and-proud dedicated to portrait/figure works. But A) landscape elements are vital to many portrait/figure paintings, and B) more importantly the approaches taken by landscape artists give you an excellent foundation for tackling all sorts of work, and I grabby-hand-motions want those landscape-artist qualities for myself.
3. Also, if I remember that I'm aiming to post a minimum of 375 works a year on this thing, I should maybe cool it on trying to blow through a ton of content at once.
4. Per Visual-Arts-Cork.com, the word "landscape" itself comes from the Dutch "landschap", meaning 'a patch of ground'. Can't verify that, but it's got the ring of truthiness.
5. California is a really common place to find plein air/landscape artists. One of my ambitions within the next couple years is to go attend some workshops out there, although I'll have to start with those led by an acrylic landscape artist (a rarity) so as to help my chances of not faceplanting right out of the gate.
6. For the record, there are actually only a few core things artists need to focus on as they develop/execute a work (e.g. composition, value, color, line/edge quality, application of the medium), but each of those categories can get pretty complicated and some of them don't overlap in the mind very well. Even for simple works, I would liken it to singing, while driving a car, while reading a book. You can do two of the three pretty well together, but add in the third and just try to have none of them suffer.
6. For the record, there are actually only a few core things artists need to focus on as they develop/execute a work (e.g. composition, value, color, line/edge quality, application of the medium), but each of those categories can get pretty complicated and some of them don't overlap in the mind very well. Even for simple works, I would liken it to singing, while driving a car, while reading a book. You can do two of the three pretty well together, but add in the third and just try to have none of them suffer.