Neutralize, Part 2

This is a lesson and a continuation of my last post. If you haven't read it, please begin there.

Now that you understand how to neutralize color, lets talk about how to implement it into your art. I'll explain it from the perspective of a landscape, but it holds true for any composition.

First off, your sky isn't usually neutralized. Its your source of light. Clouds on the other hand can often be. The sky is a whole lesson on its own, so let's pretend your sky is painted and its time to paint the other elements in your landscape. Do you start in the distance and work forward? It isn't necessary to work like this, but for this lesson, I'll explain it in this order.

Lets start in the far distance, where trees are tiny. This is where your colors will be neutralized the most. This is where the "snowstorm's effect is heaviest", so everything about these trees will be muted, hazy and filmy. Tree edges should be loose and soft. Nothing hard and defined. Just as the color is muted, so should be your brushstroke.

If your composition has several layers, meaning subjects in varying distances from the viewer, such as background, middle ground and foreground. Make each layer gradually come into focus. Your colors should remain neutralized to a certain degree until you reach the foreground. Once you have already painted the background in very muted shades, you can add pigment to the remaining paint on your palette. So a very neutralized background yellow can be altered for the middle ground by simply adding more yellow pigment to it. Since the original mixture was already neutralized, there is no need to neutralize it again. By adding yellow, it will become less neutralized than the original and therefore it will be brighter and leap forward, by contrast.

Objects that are less neutralized will separate visually from those that are more neutralized.

Take another look at the top photo. The treetops from the middle ground read closer to us, even though we only see a small portion of them. No perspective lines are present. It is the varying degree of neutralization that causes this effect.

Your color saturation increases as it moves forward on your canvas and focus more defined on your objects. More detail is revealed in the middle ground, but edges are still a bit soft.

As we continue to the foreground, our colors become pure and not neutralized.

It is here we find the most detail. The "snowstorm" has few particles in our way. Colors are saturated. Darks are deep. Contrasts are sharp and edges are crisp.

When painting an open field or a vast ocean, make sure you neutralize the farthest portion and increase the amount of pigment, as you move forward. If your experiencing the problem of your field or ocean wanting to "stand-up", simply neutralize the distance and watch it lie down!

If you want an object to separate from another, don't overwork it until it turns to "mud". Take the object that is behind and neutralize its edge that is touching the forward one. This can be very helpful if painting a bouquet of flowers. At times merging objects is poetic and beautiful, but if separation is wanted, neutralization will achieve it every time.

This is also a useful tool for painting plein air on a sunny day. All the colors will appear so bright to you. Nothing will look hazy or muted. But do remember to neutralize your distance and your results will improve.

If its in the distance, neutralize!

Red, yellow and blue. The three primaries... Of course you could also neutralize by simply adding payne,s gray to everything, but please don't. Your painting will suffer from it. Red, yellow and blue. Its the ticket.

Please note that this is only a lesson on creating distance with neutralized color. Art is creative and there are many exceptions to every rule. This lesson is merely a tool. A tool that can help you define one layer from another while still achieving depth and a feeling of reality. This does not address the "focal point". Aside from everything I've written, the focal point holds the sharpest edge and the most contrast in your painting. It could be as little as a small stroke. A special small stroke to pull the viewers eye there. A juicy dot of color perhaps. Something that stands out above everything else you painted on your canvas. Also another lesson...

Some artists such as Richard Schmid will purposefully mute the foreground to hop the viewer directly to the middle ground. Time and time again you will see this technique used. There is nothing wrong with doing this. It is quite captivating. But please do note that though they are drawing you to the center of the canvas, the objects in the distance are muted...

If you want to show distance, neutralize!

Nora in Naples

Nora Kasten and Susan Roux

Hello, I'm back from Florida! I hope you all had a good week. I'm relaxed, refreshed and ready to paint! Thank you all for the warm wishes for a great vacation. It certainly was.

Nora Kasten was so kind as to invite my family and I to her home. How wonderful it was to visit with a fellow blogger! Posted is a photo of us in her studio. Her work in progress is up on her easel behind us. I'm certain I'm not alone in admiring her lovely, romantic oil paintings. I can't tell you how excited I was to have the opportunity to view them in person. I must tell you, Nora is as lovely as the work that pours out of her.

Her home is a dream gallery! I never expected to arrive at such a splendid place filled with dozens and dozens of her amazing paintings. Room after room she took me to see them all. It was a slow tour as I absolutely had to stop to admire each and every one of them! They are magnificent on the internet, but as you well know, a photo of a painting never does the actual work justice. In life, these jewels sent shivers up my spine. Her use of saturated color coupled with her dreamy brushstroke is energizing and captivating. I couldn't take my eyes off of them!

She treated us to a lovely lunch where I sipped red wine and our "get acquainted" conversation never left art. I've written to you before of my travels and how I meet with artists. I urge you to try it for yourself. It will become the highlight of your holiday! Art connects us. Its a bond that can instantly make you feel like family. You all experience it here through blogs, but it doesn't stop when you meet in person. It escalates!

If you'd like to read about some of my various experiences meeting artists, click these different entries. Don't give up, where I met and painted with artists Mat Grogan and Dave Hayes, John Morris and Owen Rohu.

You may think that you'd be lost for conversation meeting with a stranger, but believe me, in every instance time just flies and conversations flow easily and freely. As Nora and I talked endlessly, she played a DVD of Richard Schmid with the volume off. In one direction I viewed him creating a masterpiece and in every other direction my eye was fed and stimulated by all her exhibited art. Her kind, welcoming and bubbly nature made us feel instantly at home.

The four hours we spent together whizzed by. I didn't want to leave. Nora, I hope I didn't overstay my welcome. You and your husband were a delight. Thank you for making us feel so welcomed.

I must tell you, Nora has painted countless self portraits. They are all wonderful and full of light. One of my favorite paintings hung as a focal point, in a place of grandeur. It is a painting she did of her husband some years back. I absolutely loved what she captured with paint. Men sitting in their suits don't usually hold much appeal for me. But his kindness and her affection for him shown with great visibility through the paint she applied. Nora, I don't know if you've ever posted this masterpiece of yours, but I hope you find it appropriate to share at some point. Its a wonderful work that can be appreciated even if you're not the wife...

Thank you Nora. I hope our journey forward blossoms further than blogging. I truly enjoyed our conversation and hope to continue it.

(Photograph by Michael McAllister)

Richard Schmid

I had a Richard Schmid Christmas. Many of you probably don't even know what that means or who Richard Schmid is, but artists do. Schmid is by my beliefs the most talented living artist the world has today. You can see his work here: http://www.richardschmid.com/. Go ahead, its worth the click.

I was first introduced to him through Artists Magazine years ago. I still remember falling in love through pages of delicate, surprising, romantic still-life's. The edges of things would disappear and other forms would emerge. Pink ribbons swirled and twirled in large loops, just off the spool, catching light, moving gently around long stemmed flowers in such delicate embrace then disappearing and reemerging as his forms always do. A romantic dance of peek-a-boo captured on every painting. I remember staring at these images for hours wondering how he could paint these unbelievable paintings. I could just touch and smell his roses and along the delicate exposed stems the leaves were just as magnificent. He painted the most perfect leaves. I was so drawn to them.

Alla Prima, a wonderful book, became part of my collection as soon as it was released. I was fortunate enough to be present at the filming of his first educational video. I listened to his every word. I asked him questions. I went to shake his hand. He was down to earth. A gentile man eager to share his secrets, his talents with those who would listen. Mike bought a still-life print and surprised me for my birthday that year. I think the framer he chose understood the greatness of this work for he triple matted it, picking up soft tones from the painting, and placing it in a frame far larger than the original print. It is a powerful piece to behold.

Now my home has a second print by Richard Schmid. Its a landscape, green like the Ireland we recently visited. A lone tree trunk and golden diagonals in the foreground hill direct the eye to distant houses obscured in the atmospheric haze. A feeling of comfort, of safety, of being one with nature comes over the viewer. Its only a print. How must the actual painting make one feel, I wonder?

I also received his latest book, Landscapes. I'm at a lost for words. Its a wow...