Always Put Warm Sky Color Down First!

October 18, 2009

In my last post, When Fall Color Turns Values Topsy Turvy, the readership suffered my lamentations over a seemingly endless summer. Well guess what, after intensifying over the last two weeks, the summer heat has finally given way to some cool weather. Today’s forecast high is in the upper 60’s. It’s time for all you Florida artists to get out and paint in the “open air”.

Rust Bucket

I have been absent from the blogosphere for a couple weeks because I was participating in “Painting the Region: The Bartram Trail”. It was a plein air event that took place along the St. John’s River in and around Switzerland, Fl. The already beautiful scenery which included parks along the river and a working ranch was enhanced by dramatically cloudy skies. Not be confined by “suggested painting” territories I ventured into other areas and found a marine painters heaven. I’ll write about this gorgeous location later this week.

Today I want to show you two of the eight pieces I painted during the 4 day event and talk a little about color and value in the sky mass. Here they are:

Old Glory, oil-linen, 8 x 10

Haul-out, oil-linen, 9 x 12

The painting of the dock with “Old Glory” is, obviously enough, facing directly into the sun. The one of the sailboat in “Haul-out” is a face lit subject with the sun at my back and slightly off to the left. Let’s talk a little about how value and color behave given these two different lighting situations.

Facing into a sun which was fairly low in the sky everything was imbued with an orange yellow tone. The glare of light “washed out” the color making it less intense. I actually under-painted the sky with a pale orange yellow. I graded the under-painting to contain slightly more red away from the sun and almost no red near the sun. I then painted cool blue sky color into the still wet under paint. As you see, the result is a subtle vibration of pale warm and cool. Perfect for an evening sky.

This particular scene included the effects of some dense humidity which not only cooled and subdued all of the colors but brought the values of sky, horizontal and vertical planes, with the exception of the back lit tree mass, into a fairly close range. The result is a very tonal and simple four value painting. If I were to use this study as reference material for a studio painting I would probably try to wash out the colors in the sky and water further and put more intense color into the back lit tree.

“Haul-out” was painted at the same time of day at another location on the other side of the river. Since the sun is behind me all of the colors are more intense. The ground and upright planes were endowed with a certain warmth. The sky is bright and intense with the abiding presence of purplish blue. I actually under-painted this sky with a pale red. I graded the value of the under-paint getting slightly darker from left to right and slightly lighter from top to bottom. While the under-paint was still wet I painted the sky blues into it making sure to include a temperature change from green-blue to red-blue as I moved from left to right. These subtle gradations in color and value were mainly because the sun was not only behind me but slightly off to the left. The daylight sky is always lighter and warmer nearer the sun.

In his book, Gruppe On Painting, Emile A. Gruppe says, “With paint, it’s always easier to make a warm color cool than it is to make a cool one warm. So always put down your warm sky color first.” (page 40 - Color in Nature). He recommends putting down yellow when looking into the sun, orange when the sun is off to one side, and red when the sun is behind. “You’ll be surprised how little cool color is necessary to make the sky look natural“, he says. He also says that students almost always use too much blue. Interestingly enough, John F. Carlson said the exact same thing about student’s skies.

Later this week I will be traveling to the east coast of Florida for the Crescent Beach Paint Out. It’s a great event and I will be staying in a cabin just one block from the Atlantic Ocean near a ramp that allows cars to drive onto the beach. I hope the surf is up!!! I luv me sum wave paintings! Why not come check out the event? The weather is great for a road trip.