I thought about giving you some rules for painting fog, and then thought again: why not let the masters show you themselves? The hard part was winnowing it down to ten.
Waterloo Bridge. Effect of Fog, 1903, Claude Monet, courtesy Hermitage Museum. Part of a series of 41 paintings capturing London’s Waterloo Bridge engulfed in fog, showcasing Monet’s fascination with atmospheric effects.
Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, 1875, James McNeill Whistler, courtesy Detroit Institute of Arts. This nocturne painting features a distant fireworks display against a foggy night sky, showcasing Whistler’s mastery of tone and atmosphere.
Fog, Voisins, 1874, Alfred Sisley, courtesy Musée d’Orsay. An Impressionist landscape painting portraying a misty morning in the French countryside. It’s a more intimate view than most fog paintings.
Fog Warning, 1885, Winslow Homer, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. This realistic painting depicts a fisherman rowing his boat through foggy waters, evoking the very real danger of being caught out in the fog in the Gulf of Maine.
Charing Cross Bridge, Claude Monet, 1903, courtesy Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon. One of a series of 37 paintings of this bridge in various fog conditions. Are you sensing a theme here about Monet’s capacity for hard work?
Snowstorm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, 1810-12, J.M.W. Turner, courtesy the Tate. While primarily focused on a snowstorm, this painting also captures the foggy atmosphere surrounding the mountains.
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, c. 1817, Caspar David Friedrich, courtesy Hamburger Kunsthalle. I’ve mentioned this painting so many times I was almost reluctant to use it again, but it is a definitive fog painting. He did so many of them that his entire oeuvre is worth studying.
Grand Canyon (Mist in the Canyon), 1915, Thomas Moran, courtesy Palm Springs Art Museum. Moran’s work is Romantic in that he idealizes nature as a spiritual and moral force. On this relatively small canvas, he still succeeds in capturing the monumental scale of the Grand Canyon.
Stetind in Fog, Peder Balke, 1864, courtesy National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. This Romantic painting sets the austere peak against the turbulent waters of Tysfjord.
Impression, Sunrise, 1872, Claude Monet, courtesy Musée Marmottan Monet. The masterpiece that gave rise to the Impressionist movement, portraying a foggy morning at Le Havre’s port with stunning use of light and color.
Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, $652 framed includes shipping in continental US.
Some people are “just born with talent” One of the most pernicious lies about art is that people are either born with innate talent for art, or they’re not. While some people may show early aptitude, art is a skill that requires practice, dedication, and continuous learning. I’ve taught for a few decades now, and some of the people who’ve gone the farthest would surprise you.
The starving artist The ‘starving artist’ is a fiction of popular culture. As in every entrepreneurial career path, there are people who will be successful and those who won’t. Some will work second jobs to support their families, but I know many people surviving and prospering as artists.
Autumn farm, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed, includes shipping in continental US.
Artists are loners Art is communication, and the people who do it have something to say. While some need solitude, many collaborate and work best in social settings. Online groups, workshops, cooperative studios, and classes provide social opportunities and support for solo artists.
Art is not a “real” job At the end of 2021, the arts and cultural sectors made up 4.4% of the nation’s economy. That was more than a trillion dollars. Between 2020 and 2021 the economic value of the arts grew by 13.7%, a disproportionately large increase when compared to the wider economy.*
Oil paint is toxic The binder for oil paint is linseed oil, which comes from flax seed. That’s the same stuff I put in my oatmeal every morning. The pigments in paints can be toxic, but it’s easy to choose a non-toxic palette these days.
Autumn Farm, evening blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.
[Fill in the blank] is the easiest medium Every medium has some maddeningly difficult technical issues and things that are easier than in other mediums. In the end, they balance each other out pretty evenly. And, anyway, once you get past the question of how to get the paint where it belongs, most of the difficulties of painting are true across all media.
Art is easy Creating good art demands dedication, practice, and continuous improvement. It’s not merely about inspiration striking; good artists put in years of effort to develop our skills.
There’s an ‘arty personality’ Probably, but that person is probably a poseur. Most working artists are no different from their neighbors. You might actually be living next door to an artist and not even realize it.
Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping in continental US.
Figure is the highest expression of painting Artists used to believe in a hierarchy of genres, but that ship has sailed. Done well, all styles and genres have their value and their challenges. Often the simplest work is, paradoxically, the most difficult.
Art doesn’t require education There are excellent self-taught artists, but they’ve spent a lot of time studying others’ technique. Artistic practice rests on two millennia of technical skill, carefully passed along from masters to students. You don’t learn that by just thinking about art.
In aesthetics, the word ‘sublime’ means greatness beyond all possibility of human comprehension. There’s a large dollop of terror in there, as well, for what is mankind when facing the power of the sea or the infinity of space, or, indeed, God? The sublime is a force much greater than beauty. Our primary response ought to be awe.
The archetypal painting of the sublime is Caspar David Friedrich‘s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog. But sublimity was on every Romantic painter’s mind. The British gave it an added fillip of moral judgment; hence Turner used it in his powerful polemic against slavery.
Detail from The Slave Ship, by JMW Turner. Hands and chains on the surface of the sea.
Turner was inspired by the story of the overloaded slave ship Zong. She was carrying 442 enslaved people on a boat intended to carry fewer than half that; she was captained by a surgeon, not a mariner, and nobody was checking the water supplies as she bumbled around the Caribbean. When she ran low on drinking water, the crew threw more than 130 people overboard. They continued on this unspeakably evil task even after it started raining.
Evil is difficult to depict in a landscape painting, so Turner made Nature the visual culprit. The ship in the distance is a slave ship, as evidenced by its fast clipper lines. That’s the most realistic part of the painting. There are iron chains floating on a lurid sea, the leg of a woman being devoured by fishes and drowning hands grasping at the air.
Detail from The Slave Ship, by JMW Turner. Leg of a drowning woman being eaten by fishes.
When Turner exhibited this picture at the Royal Academy in 1840, he paired it with the following extract from his perhaps-apocryphal poem Fallacies of Hope. (When he died, no such manuscript was ever found, but he often paired his paintings with verses from this supposed work.)
For The Slave Ship, he wrote:
Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay; Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds Declare the Typhon’s coming. Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard The dead and dying – ne’er heed their chains Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope! Where is thy market now?
Although Turner was a staunch Abolitionist in his maturity, as a young man he’d invested in the West Indian sugar trade, like many of his peers. Perhaps The Slave Ship was his atonement.
The Deluge, Joseph Mallord William Turner, c. 1805, courtesy the Tate.
Long before Turner developed his unique style, he was captivated by the concept of the sublime. That can be seen clearly in The Deluge, painted when he was just 30. Nominally about the Biblical flood, it’s a powerful statement of hopelessness, prefiguring the same theme in The Slave Ship.
Reaction to The Slave Ship was mixed. John Ruskin, who received it as a gift from his father in 1844, thought it the greatest of Turner’s paintings. Mark Twain ridiculed it thus, “What a red rag is to a bull, Turner’s ‘Slave Ship’ was to me, before I studied art. Mr. Ruskin is educated in art up to a point where that picture throws him into as mad an ecstasy of pleasure as it used to throw me into one of rage, last year, when I was ignorant. His cultivation enables him-and me, now-to see water in that glaring yellow mud, and natural effects in those lurid explosions of mixed smoke and flame, and crimson sunset glories; it reconciles him-and me, now-to the floating of iron cable-chains and other unfloatable things; it reconciles us to fishes swimming around on top of the mud-I mean the water. The most of the picture is a manifest impossibility-that is to say, a lie; and only rigid cultivation can enable a man to find truth in a lie.”
Thinking about the landscape as a series of planes will help you create depth in your painting.
Ice Bound Locks, John F. Carlson, courtesy Vose Galleries
When Eric Jacobsen told us that he was teaching the theory of angles and consequent values in his recent workshop, I was baffled by the big words. “What’s that when it’s at home?” I asked him. Ken DeWaard was equally confused, responding in a torrent of emojis.
“C’mon, guys, it’s John F. Carlson 101!” Eric exclaimed. Björn Runquist immediately checked, and announced that there was nothing about any angles on page 101. (Actually, it’s in chapter 3; I checked.)
It’s no wonder that Eric’s no longer returning our calls.
Sylvan Labyrinth, John F. Carlson, courtesy of Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
All kidding aside, Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting is a classic. His theory, although it has a high-flown title, is actually quite intelligible to even the meanest intellects (and you know who you are, guys).
“Every good picture is fundamentally an arrangement of three or four large masses,” Carlson began. That’s as good an organizing principle as any in art. Value is what makes form visible, so we should see, translate, simplify and organize form into value masses.
Carlson wrote that any landscape would contain four groups of values bouncing off three major planes:
The horizontal ground plane;
The angle plane represented by mountain slopes or rooftops;
The upright plane, which is perpendicular to the ground plane, such as trees.
In the middle of the day-our most common circumstance for painting-the value structure would be as follows:
The sky is our light source. It should be the highest value in our painting.
The ground plane gets the most light bouncing off it, so it should be the next-lightest plane.
The angle planes such as rooftops or mountain slopes, are the next lightest planes.
The upright objects in our painting, such as trees, walls or people, should be the darkest value element.
Snow Lyric, John F. Carlson, courtesy of The Athenaeum
That doesn’t mean that the shapes are crudely simplified, as a glance at Carlson’s own paintings confirms. The shapes can be beautiful, elegant, complex, and lyrical without too much value overlap.
Thinking about the landscape as a series of planes will help you create depth in your painting. However, it can be tricky to see the landscape as a series of planes rather than objects. It can be helpful to keep each value group completely separate, with no overlap of values, but, in reality, there will always be overlap.
Your assignment is to find a photo among your own snapshots and reduce it to a series of four values. Then paint it.
As you try to integrate this idea into your painting, exaggerate the separation of planes.
Of course, there are many circumstances where this doesn’t hold true-where the sky is leaden and darker than a snow plane, or when the fading evening light is hitting the vertical plane rather than the ground. But understanding it will help you paint the exceptions in a more arresting way.
This post originally appeared in 2021, but the information bears repeating.
Me, painting at Camden Public Library, 9X12, colored pencil, by Robin Miller.
Yesterday, I received the most amazing gift in the mail, from my sometimes-student, Robin Miller. She drew it from a photo she took last summer at the Camden Public Library Native Plant Sale, which was the brainchild of another of my students, Amy Thomsen. My library-supplied assistant at that sale was Becky Bowes, who’s also, coincidentally, another of my painting students.
It’s one of only two paintings (I know of) done of me. The other was by Ed Buonvecchio and is in a private collection in Ocean Park, ME. The owner recently got in touch with me and offered to leave it to me when she sheds this earthly coil. I enthusiastically accepted, although I suspect she’s younger than me.
My grandchildren skating, approximately 9X12, by Bruce McMillan.
I haven’t been this surprised by a gift since I received the painting, above, of my grandchildren from my buddy Bruce McMillan. In the oddly circular nature of this week, Bruce and his buddy Óskar Thorarensen stopped by my gallery for a brief visit.
On Sunday, I was in Rochester, NY, for Kamillah Ramos‘ wedding. I first had her as a student when she was a junior in high school; she’s now a full-grown architect and last took a workshop with me a year ago. I love the kid, and I cried a little into my lovely embroidered cambric handkerchief. (I’m just kidding; I cadged a tissue from someone.)
Supervising three of my painting students at Kamillah Ramos’ wedding. (Photo by Douglas Perot)
Being a serious artist, Kamillah set up an easel so people could paint during her reception. (I went up and adjusted the palette while she wasn’t looking.) Later, I was at the easel with three of my former students as they painted on this most auspicious of days. We all managed to keep the paint off our wedding finery, and that really made me weep with joy.
I am very serious about the business of art, but I also recognize that my work has created a wide circle of cherished friends. There’s Toby Gowing, who mentored me through some very dark times in my life. And Jane Chapin, who saved my nut when we were stranded in Patagonia, and who later captured a street dog for me in New Mexico. And Bobbi Heath, who mentored me into being businesslike. There are my pals from the Hudson Valley, the Adirondacks, Arizona, Texas, and especially Rochester, where I taught for many years. Jennifer Johnson, who pulls me away from the brink every year at my Schoodic workshop. And there are Ken DeWaard, Eric Jacobsen, and Björn Runquist, with whom I paint here in Rockport. I can’t possibly mention you all by name, but I can tell you how blessed I am by having you in my life.
My friend Rita once told me at the start of a party, “you have more friends than you do chairs.” It’s stuck with me all these years, because to me it’s really the greatest blessing life can throw at us. May we all have more friends than we do chairs.
My canoe is on the SUV, ready to roll. Swim out and say hi!
As I said, this week is circular, so it’s fitting that this morning I head back to Camden for the third annual Camden on Canvas, also a benefit for the Camden Public Library. I’ve got my canoe on my car, and providing there are no cock-ups, I plan to paddle out to Curtis Island to paint the lighthouse. I’m reminded of Cassie Sano bounding up Bald Mountain two years ago to watch me paint. If she appears on Curtis Island streaming wet, seaweed in her hair, I promise to give her a lift back to shore.
Schooners in the fog at Camden, 9X12, private collection.
“How do you get into shows like Camden on Canvas?” a reader asked in response to Friday’s post. “It seems like I just keep getting rejected over and over.”
When I was young, I was very naive. I thought I could apply to prestigious shows and I’d automatically get in, because the jurors – of course! – would instantly recognize my genius. It didn’t help that I had some early successes, which were the equivalent of a new golfer hitting a hole-in-one. They didn’t signify anything about my skill, but they made the inevitable rejection that much harder.
Ketch and Schooner, 8X10 in a solid silver leaf frame, $652 includes shipping in the continental US. Lighter fog, 20 years after the above painting, my style has changed but the dock remains the same.
Today I’m no smarter, but I’m far more experienced. I’ve learned the hard way that the competition is fierce. We work our way up to big shows by putting in time and effort at smaller shows. Jurying is subjective, so you might win an award one year, and be rejected another year. (I’ve never had much luck trying to game the system by only applying to shows where I think the jurors will like my work.) Moreover, there are some factors you can’t know, such a gallery’s pressing need to have more of one medium, or artists of a particular demographic, in a show. You can’t take any of it personally.
It’s partly a game of numbers; the more events you apply to, the more you’ll get into. I’m a better painter than I was 25 years ago. I hope to be even better 25 years hence. My success rate is better than it was a quarter-century ago and I expect it will continue to improve.
Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping in continental US. This is one of my favorite things I’ve painted in Camden in recent years.
Painting in front of an audience
“I hate painting in front of crowds,” a friend kvetched as we scouted locations. In the case of nerves, as I wrote last week, desensitization helps. But for most experienced painters, the problem isn’t nervousness but distraction.
That’s a harder nut to crack. We are supposed to talk to passers-by, engage them in the painting process, and encourage them to attend the auction or sale. However much that helps business, it can have a toxic impact on your work.
Sometimes I do two paintings: one is a serious entry for the auction, and one is theater. But that’s not always possible.
I cope with frequent interruptions by digging deeper into my process. That way, when I’ve lost the thread, I can go back over my mental checklist. And when I’ve gone completely off the rails, I take a break and go bother some other artist.
There are artists who simply can’t deal with the endless chatter. There are solitary perches even in Camden, where they’ll squirrel themselves away to paint. The downside is that they haven’t established a relationship with their audience, and that’s not good for sales.
Camden Harbor, Midsummer, oil on canvas, 24X36 $3,985 framed includes shipping in continental US.
What about the weather?
This has been a very unusual year. Fog is a beautiful part of our climate, but even lifelong Mainers have told me they’ve never seen this much dense fog.
Obviously, I’m not a meteorologist but since we’ve been in a fog pattern for months now, it’s unlikely to change by Friday. What’s a poor artist to do? Shorten the pictorial distance, play up the atmospherics, and, above all, count my blessings. It could be snowing.
Camden on Canvas features “twenty-two notable New England landscape artists [who] will paint, en plein air, at multiple local sites” from this Friday morning to noon on Sunday. Start your tour at the information tent outside the Camden Library’s Atlantic Avenue entrance. There, you’ll find information about us and a map showing where we’re painting. The tent will be open from 9 to 5 Friday and Saturday, and 9 to noon on Sunday.
The reception and auction will be Sunday, July 23, 4 to 6 PM, and features Kaja Veilleux, who’s the most entertaining and professional art auctioneer I’ve ever worked with. Tickets are available here.
Spring Greens, 8X10, oil on canvasboard, $652 framed, includes shipping in continental US.
The ‘golden hour’ is that period after dawn and before sunset when the light is warm and the shadows are long and blue. The farther north you go, the longer the golden hour lasts. in midsummer in Maine, we have very little of that ‘dead light’ that so bedevils painters in more southerly climes.
Sunlight is composed of a spectrum of colors, which we observe when it passes through a prism, as when raindrops create a rainbow. This dispersion reveals the visible (to humans) spectrum of light. Combined equally, these colors make white light. But sunlight is seldom pure white. It is generally some tint of color – often a warm yellow, depending on the time of day and the weather.
There are instances when natural light can appear quite cool; for example, on an overcast day or at sea, when the reflected blue water and sky can tint everything blue. At midday in midsummer, when the sun is at the highest point in the sky, the light can be so blindingly white that it looks cool.
When light shines on an object, that object absorbs certain wavelengths of light and reflects others. The warmer the ambient light, the warmer the light bouncing back at us from that object.
Walnut tree, stone wall, 8X16, oil on linenboard, $903 framed includes shipping in continental US.
What color are shadows?
Shadows do not have an inherent color of their own. When an object casts a shadow, it blocks some of the light from reaching the area behind it. The shadow will be a different hue than the lighted part, because the shadow is not illuminated directly by the light source. Its hue is influenced by the absence of the reflected light and by the colors of the surrounding environment.
As a matter of mental shorthand, we say that the shadows are the complement of the light source, but this is not exactly true. We think the complement of yellow light should be violet, but that’s in subtractive color (the same system of color that gives us paints and inks). The primary subtractive colors are red, blue, and yellow, and their complements are green, orange, and violet.
However, light creates additive color, with different primaries and complements. The primary colors are red, green and blue, and their complements are cyan, magenta, and yellow.
Autumn farm, evening blues, oil on canvasboard, $1449 framed includes shipping in continental US.
That means the complement of our yellow light is blue, and the complement of peachy light would be more on the greenish-blue side. However, there’s another aspect of light at play. Just as distant objects can appear blue-violet because of the scattering of blue light, shadows can sometimes look blue-violet due to the scattering of shorter wavelengths of light.
Three photos of the golden hour, courtesy of Jennifer Johnson
Your eye-brain connection sees things interpretively. You may see the same blue shadows in the three photographs at top, but I’ve sampled them and they’re not the same at all. In fact, they’re not even blue, but rather three variations of a soft blueish-grey. Your mind perceives the lack of warmth in the shadows as coolness. In this case it’s better to trust your mind than the hard ‘facts’ of camera and laptop.
Generally, we warm up the shadows in figure to stop the model from looking cadavaresque. The Servant, oil on linen, 36X40, $4042.50 includes shipping in continental US.
You’ll outsmart your audience if you just remember that if the light is warm, the shadows will be cool, and vice-versa. Landscape painting tends to have warm light and cool shadows, while figure and portrait painting tend to use cool light and warm shadows. (There are of course many examples disproving this general rule.)
The exception to this is filtered light. Its shadows and lighter passages will be variations of the same color temperature. This is how we instinctively know that something we’re seeing is under an awning, for example.
Study the Spanish painter Joaquín Sorolla to understand the color of light. He was the master of warm and cool passages.
My painting for the 2022 Camden on Canvas, called So Many Boats! 24X36, oil on canvas, Private collection.
“I think when we ‘paint for ourselves,’ that’s when growth can happen. Our work just might push to a different level,” Barb Walker commented recently on Facebook.
“The whole burden of making a living selling artwork can have a devastating effect on one’s work,” Eric Jacobsen responded. “It keeps us in repetition mode and causes us to play it safe. Charlie Movalli posed a great question once. He asked, ‘Do you paint to be understood…or do you paint to understand?'”
My 2021 painting for Camden on Canvas, called View from Bald Mountain, 36X24, oil on canvas, private collection.
I’ve had times where I stopped selling entirely to concentrate on improving my skills, and times when I produced very personal work that will never sell in my lifetime. But I’m more cynical than Eric and Barb. I need to eat, and I’m not much good at anything else. I either sell paintings or take a job as a greeter at Walmart.
Somehow our culture has created the myth that artists are above thinking about the business of art. “I’ve never been in it for the money,” said one friend (who nonetheless has a family to support). Nobody expects their doctors or lawyers to be motivated by altruism, and most of my painting buddies have spent at least as much time learning their craft as a professional-school graduate. (The BFA is just the beginning, friends.)
Ever-changing Camden Harbor, 36X24, oil on canvas, $3,188.00 includes shipping in continental US.
It’s counterproductive for artists to buy into this myth. If we don’t set a high value on our artwork, who will?
Above it or afraid?
Sometimes, people refuse to engage in the marketplace because they’re afraid of failure. Painting for public consumption can make us better painters, however, as we strive to connect with an audience.
It doesn’t help that there’s some stupendously awful work out there masquerading as ‘art.’
This week a reader sent me a photo of an object painted by an ‘artist’ as a fundraiser. It was incompetent by every measure of design and execution. “It seems almost like satire. It highlights the unfortunate reality that anyone can call themselves an artist, and far too many do,” my reader commented.
I spend a great deal of time teaching painters the objective criteria for critique. I wish someone would do the same for art fans. “I don’t know art but I know what I like,” is a great starting point. However, it’s not enough. If you want a painting that will continue to speak to you for years to come, it helps to understand what makes a good painting. And that’s not opinion; it rests on a thousand years of tradition and critical thinking.
As with every philosophical endeavor, understanding starts with a common language. When artists carry on about things like lost-and-found line or pictorial depth, they’re not just trying to sound smart and smarmy. These are real factors that affect the staying power of a painting. And they’re as relevant in abstraction as in figurative art.
Camden Harbor, Midsummer, oil on canvas, 24X36 $3,985.00 framed includes shipping in continental US.
Two events this week
Kay Sullivan, Eric Jacobsen, Jill Valliere and Jim Vandernoot will be featured at the Red Barn Gallery‘s Strictly Invitational show this evening from 5-7 PM. That’s located in the heart of scenic Port Clyde village, across the street from the General Store. They’re a powerful lineup that’s worth driving out to see.
Camden on Canvas is next weekend, July 21-23, in the equally picturesque village of Camden, ME. There are too many great artists to list them by name here, but Colin Page, in particular, deserves a shout-out. Each year, he wears two hats, as organizer and participant. He and the library staff have put together a fantastic event in just a few short years. I strongly encourage you to come out and see the art.
Sunset Sail, 14X18, oil on linen, $1594, Carol L. Douglas
“My friend is paralyzed at the thought of painting something that does not turn out good,” a reader wrote. “I keep telling her that experimenting is liberating and the goal is not to end up with a masterpiece every time.”
Everyone experiences performance anxiety occasionally. It may be prompted by demoing, by being in a competitive event, or even just when we encounter a tricky passage in a painting. “I’ve experienced it a few times when I am far into the painting and it looks good but it’s not finished yet,” my correspondent added. “This leads to a ‘don’t mess it up now’ attitude that affects the result.
“How can I help my friend get past this?”
Skylarking II, 18X24, oil on linen, $2318.00, Carol L. Douglas
Process, not results
Focusing on the results instead of the process is a great way to rob yourself of the joy of creativity. Many years ago, I had a student who announced at the beginning of each class who she planned to give her painting to. She was setting herself up for failure, week after week. Her painting would get all bound up in her fear of disappointing someone she loved. It’s no surprise that she didn’t stick with it.
We call concentrating on process being ‘in the zone.’ It’s a transcendent feeling, and worth striving for.
Drying Sails, oil on archival canvasboard, 9×12, $869, Carol L. Douglas
Desensitization
The more you do something, the less anxious you’ll be. I used to be terrified of public speaking, so much so that I needed beta blockers to do any kind of presentation. Years of teaching have burned that out of me. Today I can comfortably speak to large groups. Through repeated, escalating exposure, I desensitized myself to my trigger.
Desensitization is a powerful tool in Cognitive Behavior Therapy, so we know it works. How can we apply it to painting? By starting with the small steps – drawing, color mixing, and thumbnail paintings – we can slowly build our confidence for more expansive works. That’s yet another good reason to draw every day.
Of course, it helps to ask what is the root of your fear. Is it lack of knowledge? That’s fixable. Perfectionism? It helps to realize that there’s nothing perfect in art; in fact, that’s its charm.
Are you telling yourself that you can’t rise to the occasion? I do this when I clean my house. “It’s too much; I’ll never finish this!” I say, and then I’m mad. If I can shut off those negative thoughts and just concentrate on the work itself, I have a fine time scrubbing.
One of the best ways to reduce anxiety is to be prepared. Whether that means learning to draw or mastering the steps of painting, the more confident you feel, the less anxious you’ll be.
Ever-changing Camden Harbor, 24X36, oil on canvas, $3,188.00, Carol L. Douglas
Is it anxiety or excitement?
Both make your heart race and give you butterflies in your stomach. A little nervousness can be helpful; it can elevate your performance. The difference is that when you’re anxious, you worry about everything that can go wrong, instead of seeing the potential for success. Instead of trying to calm yourself down (which never works anyways) try to channel that energy into excitement.
How do you rate your overall well-being?
I’m a proponent of physical exercise. We all know it releases endorphins (whatever they are), but it also calms us down. People frequently comment about my dog’s perfect deportment; he is well-behaved because he does many trail miles with me every morning. As a bonus, I’ve survived two cancers and have no blood pressure, blood sugar, or cholesterol problems at the grand old age of 64.
Seek Support
If you are still unsure and troubled, take a class or workshop. The best of them are supportive communities that will help you master technique and feel great about doing art.
Sampler on Arches natural cold-pressed paper: a straight-edge was used for the straight lines, and the curves were drawn freehand. An ultramarine blue wash was laid over the mask, and a glaze of cadmium yellow was added after the mask was removed. Where it is still pink, the masking fluid is still in place. (All photos courtesy Michael Prairie.)
I have an aversion to frisket, or masking fluid, for watercolor. I’m unable to apply it elegantly. It wrecks brushes, leaves lumpy marks, and in general always seems like more trouble than it’s worth. Instead, I wet my paper carefully around the items to block out and then apply the paint using capillary action to direct it. That has its problems as well, so when Michael Prairie shared this method of applying frisket using an old-fashioned ruling pen, I was gobsmacked. (Mike’s an engineer, so it’s no surprise that he found a solution to this technical problem.) Without further ado, I’ll let Mike explain it:
Masking fluid mixed with a dab of quinacridone magenta
I had my father’s old ruling pen (he was a machinist and did some mechanical drawings). It was beat up a bit, so I tuned it up. Here are a couple useful links that I found, one of which really helped me tune the tip:
I can tint the fluid with a bit of watercolor pigment, and it hasn’t stained the paper. Some fluid is available in blue, but this lets you use different colors if you want.
The ruling pen works well with the watercolor paint itself. It is a great way to paint long lines of uniform thickness.
Ruling pen dipped in masking fluid, and the outside of the tines wiped dry.
Dipping the tip in thick masking fluid and wiping the excess off outside of the channel works well, but with thinner watercolor paint it tends to wick out of the channel. For that, I found I can load the pen with a loaded watercolor brush by scraping it across the edge higher in the channel. I also got an eye dropper to load the pen, and that works well.
For using a straightedge to draw lines, the edge should be lifted above the paper so the fluid or paint does not wick under the edge. Some straightedges are designed with a notch (or a rabbet in woodworking parlance) for “inking,” but a couple layers of masking tape set back from the edge will do the trick.
Ruling pen filled with juicy ultramarine blue with an eyedropper (to keep the outside of the pen dry).
The ruling pen can be used freehand as well. With the tips tuned so they are sharp and parallel, the line will follow the direction of the two edges on the tip. If the pen is held without rotating the handle, the line will be straight, but if the handle is rotated while drawing, it can be steered to make smooth curves.
Some people use nibs (from fountain pens). I haven’t tried that, except for a crude nib I made with a plastic drinking straw. It worked okay for scrubby applications of masking fluid.
I ruined an old paintbrush by not dipping it in Dawn dishwashing soap first-and I don’t know what the soap will do to the paint if residue is left behind.
I also tried some silicone brushes and found that they were good for dropping small semi-controlled blobs of masking fluid and moving it around into desired shapes, but they don’t come close to what I can do with a ruling pen for straight lines.
Sampler on Strathmore Bristol smooth sketchbook paper, i.e., hot-pressed.
You can get a ruling pen at Dick Blick, or a cheaper one at Amazon, but not all drafting tools are created equal. I didn’t want a cheap knock off, so I went to ebay where I found a used Staedtler Mars one for eleven bucks including the shipping. That means I will find my old one shortly, right?
