Painting from the Beach , Four Ways to use Atmospheric Perspective.

This week, writing from the beach, I began to ponder why things look so different in the distance. Not having a degree in art, I learned most of what I know from experience and observation. I knew colors changed when viewed from a distance but I didn't know much of the reasoning behind it. Atmospheric perspective is a tool for us artists to use to increase the illusion of depth by using color to mimic the effect of the atmosphere. Even though depth plays a role in all paintings, it is especially useful to the landscape painter. We can exaggerate this rule of thumb to our advantage by creating an illusion for our viewers.

In researching this blog I discovered these key points.

1. You see your most vibrant or saturated colors up close. They usually include reds and yellows predominantly but encompasses all colors. The shapes of objects are more defined and have greater contrasts (lights and darks).

2. The next layer back you loose the yellow and the warm color temperature in front. The further away you are color begins to get cooler and less defined. Colors appear in drifts rather than separate leaves and flowers.

3. As things get smaller in the distance green and violet reds make up more of the background. The colors are becoming less intense and contrast is blurred or even sometimes lost. A haze covers the distance and the brighter colors are less visible causing less shadows. Trees get softer and flatter as they recede and appear to have a thinner texture..

4. Blue and purple are predominant in the far distance as we have reached the other side of the color wheel. The atmosphere gets lighter and grayer. Shapes diminish, edges fade, and texture is subdued. The shapes begin to just hint at being an object. The colors get cooler as they get closer to the horizon as we see less yellow light.

This painting 'Crystal Beach' was my experimental fun. I incorporated more reds and yellows in the foreground with added texture. I used tools, marks, and my fingers a bit. The foreground lessened into a red violet midground where I neutralized the greens. The distance is all blues and grays with a dissolving horizon into the clouds.

This is visual poetry to our brains. It can effect the mood of a painting too. Just by using a darker or lighter palette we can help set the viewers emotional reaction. Warmer colors get a front row seat so here is where we can go wild with texture shapes and marks. Your painting can be detailed or not depending on how abstract your style is. To make the background recede we need more color contrast and drama in the foreground. If you choose to just follow a couple of these suggestions it will be a good start to creating visual perspective. Another depth creating tool is Linear Perspective. Most of us understand objects get smaller the further away they are, and our eyes follow perspective lines pointed into the distance.

Atmospheric rules in painting may be affected by the earths atmosphere conditions. When there is fog or haze, rain, winter light, or sunrise/sunset it can alter or completely change expectations. The effects of the sun also will cause you to have to make adjustments. In full daytime the values or colors are lighter in the distance, but at night the colors get darker in the distance- think sundown or dusk And finally to complicate more- at sunrise or sunset the suns reflection brings back the yellows and reds in the distance!

I know this is a lot of information, but our eyes see this everyday so a lot of it is intuitive. The next time you have a vista to look at- think about how the light is affecting the color and clarity. Decide how lights or darks in a palette would affect the mood. Atmosphere is the key to a story -tell it.

If you enjoyed this post please visit MaryRylantArt.com. I would love to have your input!

Mary

Do Your paintings have a backstory? Underpainting in acrylics

For a long time I have realized that I like to make my art have a story, a sense of history if you will. In the past I have relied on textures and color to give it that depth, but it still didn't have the layers and colors sneaking through that I wanted to show. So I began to research how the renaissance oil painting masters painted. Noting that several artists painted an undercoat in black and white and then glazed colors over it I was intrigued.

I don't paint with oils but I truly felt it could be done in acrylics in a little different manner. This is my way- and I do things upside down and backwards but it seems to work for me. In practice I have learned that if a color is painted over its complementary color it has a definite richness- so why not use them in the underpainting. It just takes a little thinking through. These are the mostly finished works of a new series I call Sunlight Through the Clouds. Watch for them on maryrylantart.com in the near future.

To explain complementary colors - this is a basic color wheel. In a true wheel you can fit in a slot every color in the universe (except black and white). Complementary colors are the colors opposite on the color wheel such as red and green, orange and blue, and yellow and purple.

I have a new series of paintings I am working on and I'll show my logic behind them. I want to start by saying all my paintings have a mother color. That's a color that is added into all the colors of paint that are used to create harmony and create a painting that feels like it goes together. This group of paintings is part of my Sunlight Through the Clouds series that I am working on presently.

Oh Horror of Horrors! This is the way my paintings started out. The colors in these paintings will be mostly blue, green and yellow so I started the underpaintings in shades of orange and magenta- the complementary colors. The mother color, a beautiful subdued orange is Quinacridone/Nickel Azo Gold.

Just so you will have faith in my process I'd like to introduce my newest painting 'A Dirt Road in West Texas'. This is the same color palette and also started out the very same way. I developed the colors of the landscape and sky by painting on top of the underpainting. Little hints of what is underneath peek out and really make a nice contrast to final colors.

As I move forward with my series I will layer colors working on all three paintings at once. I will begin first with a glaze of Quin Nickel/ Azo Gold and let that dry. Next it is important to start lightening up the areas for clouds and sunlight.

There is still quite a lot of pink which will be mostly eliminated when I add my blues and greens. the light areas are beginning to look like clouds and now I need to be sure of my focal points and structure. By blending and using different brushstrokes I have added lots of movement. It's beginning to tell a story even without the expected colors.

You will notice that I have reference photos handy in case they are needed but I seldom go back to them once I'm this far into the painting. I find if I do, some of my spontaneity and looseness is lost in the abstract. In each layer that is painted I am adding texture and shapes that will be noticed when you view closely even though I know a lot of it will be painted over in future layers.

When my blues and greens are added It tones down the painting even more. I mostly painted layers of white over the yellow gold undercoat and blue over the magenta letting the complementary colors show through to add depth and contrast. I blocked in areas that were to be water and also gave the land masses their foliage.

The yellow helped define the areas of the clouds and gave the feeling of the sun shining through them. Remember in each color there were several layers and combinations of color but they all contained the mother color . This work was painted with a limited palette of 1 red (magenta), 1 blue, 1 yellow, the mother color , and white and black.

As I edited this painting I began to develop my focal point and make sure the painting was balanced. The water didn't have enough excitement and I knew it was because the clouds weren't reflected. I even painted over all the water at one point adding more lights and darks. I think this painting is finished but as it sits and looks at me more -edits may be in store.

Remember that underpainting is a great tool and painting it in complementary colors really ups the appeal.

If you enjoyed this article please join me for more ! Each week I will release a new blog on a variety of topics. Please like and subscribe.

Mary

You can't paint all the time (setting up my first website)

I have been an artist for many years and had pretty good success selling my art in local shows and competitions. Then along came my love Leon and asked me to marry him. Not only did he ask me to marry him, but he lured me to his home when he offered to build me a studio. Little did he know I would have gone to the ends of the earth for just him.

The studio is beautiful and I have done some of my best work there. But, I've slowly began to realize that the art market in deep East Texas is different. I really do understand that media is a huge asset for anyone who is a creative. As I began to educate myself I found out just how deficient I was in that realm. I am going to cut myself some slack, because I'm well past social security age , but I felt I could still learn.

So the artist in me was chomping at the bit to have a new reason to design something. I did a little homework and decided on the Wix platform for my website. They are very straightforward in their tutorials and in no time I began adding my paintings and making a product page. Its really very intuitive for the average person and if you can type better than me the set up won't be painful.

What is painful though are all the SEO forms and rules and information that must be conquered in order to boost your website where your audience will read it. There are dozens of apps offered for your website that will do just that and suddenly you are bombarded with making many decisions. How much is enough marketing? Isn't simple and concise usually better? And to add to all this, I've decided to call myself a blogger too. Maybe blogging will be just like journaling and I will work my issues out as I type. Lets hope.

Probably the worst thing that happened to me was hitting the publish button by mistake way before I was ready. Maybe its ok because Google, PayPal and the State of Texas sales tax collectors didn't know me then. Step by step, inch by inch (as the three stooges would have said) I'm getting there.

Y'all check out my new website www.MaryRylantArt.com and see what you think. I would love to hear from you.

Mary