Painting the Impression of What is There

The struggle is real! Sometimes, you just can't get it right. 
​
My husband and I are in the process of getting our house ready to sell. Our real estate agent also happens to be our good friend. He gave me a large canvas he had had sitting around for me to paint a piece of art to go in the living room. It was just the right size for the space. 

I had previously had a gallery wall on this wall. (If you don't know what a gallery wall is, in this context, check out this article.) I thought it looked cool and very "now". But with the prospect of selling, I was out-voted; it was considered "cluttered", which is probably true in this instance. 

So down the collection of framed pictures went, and in its place would go this big canvas with something on it. Something... The thought was to paint an abstract painting for decorating purposes. But as easy as that might be for some, it is not easy for me. This felt daunting and scary. So I went for something a little closer to home.

I had a picture on my phone of the Freestone Inn in Mazama, where Ray and I got married in 2017. This area is so beautiful and especially meaningful to us, so I used this as my starting point. 

As I have mentioned in earlier blog entries, I am trying to tear myself away from the smooth naturalistic painting style that comes so easily to me, and learn to be messier and focus more on light and impressions. And most of the inspiration pieces I have been looking at are landscape paintings. So this felt appropriate.

I feel like I started out reasonably well with the sky, the water, and the trees. Even the inn itself came out well. But the mountain... 

I made several attempts at the mountain, ranging from what I dubbed a "Seahawks mountain" (the Seahawks' colors are bright green and blue) to what looked like a good impression of a snowcapped mountain. The only problem was, this mountain I was painting wasn't snowcapped. And of course, given that I live in the Pacific Northwest, anyone who saw it went "oh, Mount Rainier!".

Yesterday, I actually thought I was finished. I took pictures of the painting, I even signed it. But the more I looked at it, the less I liked that mountain. This time, it looked like a rocky outcrop, and it wasn't hazy in the least, like a real mountain would be when seated in the distance. I looked back on some of the earlier stages, and I believe I was closer to what I wanted earlier on. It didn't help that I had to do the mountain twice each time: once in the background and once in the reflection. Somehow during the process of painting over and over the mountain grew, so now the proportions were also off.

There is a fine balance between painting what is actually there and painting the feeling of what is actually there. If I went in and tried to copy every color outright, it would be a boring blob of browns and greens. But the impression of what is there is more of a hazy mix of blues, purples, and peach. But those colors can also often be the makings of snow. So, how do I represent the haze and the softness, without going so light that it appears to represent a snowcapped mountain? This was the dilemma.

With colors, there are certain "recipes" that help our eyes fill in the blanks to get the true impression of what is being painted. Imagine a vase casting a shade on a brown table. Purples and blues often make much better shadows than simply using a darker color of brown. But there are no actual purples or blues there in real life. These colors help us capture the impression of what is there, rather than paint what is actually there.

Given the timing of our impending move and the need to keep things neat for viewing, I decided to give it a rest. For the time being, I will hang it as it is and get through this next chapter. 

In the meantime, I may find more tutorials and inspirations to draw from. I may even make some small-scale color tests on other canvases, to see if I can get closer to the vicinity of what my eyes are seeing and what my color choices are churning out. After all, many of the masters did sketches upon sketches and smaller renderings before they embarked on the big masterpiece or commission. So why would I think I could get it all in one go?

As I am sharing these thoughts with my artist friend, she reminded me that I do have creative license. I can make it look any way I please. So if I want to put snow on it, why not just do that?

For me, it's a matter of learning to interpret the impression of what's there. If I skip this lesson now, the next time I am confronted with a non-snowcapped mountain, I still won't know how to capture that impression. I will have to face the same struggle all over again. So I will study and try again until I get the "recipe" right. ​