Words have the power to inflict or bind wounds. May we choose ours carefully.
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| Posted, by Carol L. Douglas. Watercolor on Yupo paper. I never did figure out a color for those water-lilies. |
I was checking into an event when the canvas-stamping person said, “Oh, you paint on a red ground? I’ll have to check your work out. A lot of people do that near where I live, and I hate it.”
I have no idea what—or even if—she was thinking when she said that. But it has subtly affected me ever since. I’m finding myself less likely to leave the ground showing, more likely to lard the paint on. Neither is good technique.
I’m a confident painter. Imagine if I was less experienced, or less secure. It might have completely shaken a painter at the start of a competitive event. It’s a perfect example of how not to offer criticism.
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| Private Island, oil on canvas. This was interrupted by headache last week. |
Compare that to my dear friend Mary Byrom, who doesn’t like that red ground either. Mary is a crackerjack painter herself. I know she has good technical reasons for her opinion. She is also a loyal, kind, supportive friend. I know her intentions are good. I can listen to her opinion and weigh it fairly, without being defensive. She’s earned the right to critique my painting.
I’ve spent the month looking at and absorbing Joseph Fiore’s paintings, and I plan to start tinkering with some of his technical approaches, particularly his surfaces and scribing. He clearly—and successfully—paints on white canvases. He leaves areas white, scrubs the paint back, and lets the ground show through.
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| After checking every day this week, I decided I had to paint the reflections from my sketch, because there’s a constant breeze on Damariscotta Lake right now. |
Toning, for those of you who aren’t painters, means painting the white gesso a color before you start the painting proper. I was taught to always tone my canvases, and it’s something I also teach my students. Of course, the way I learned was to lightly tone with an earth tone in sepia, yellow ochre or grey. The brilliant red was a later addition.
Toning is as old as painting itself, but its rationale is explained through the 19th century concept of simultaneous contrast. This is a fancy way of saying that a color looks lighter against black, darker against white. To see it accurately, you need to see it against something that’s a neutral value.
Toning:
- Establishes the mid-tone values from the start;
- Unifies the color of the composition;
- Sets an emotional tone for the painting;
- Stops any specks that peek through from competing with your highlights;
- Gives you a more accurate sense of the value and size of your darks when you first set them down.
In the field, it also stops you from being blinded by brilliant white.
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| Working Dock is the painting I showed you yesterday, properly photographed this time. (I finished it at dusk.) |
From observation, I’d say the majority of my plein air peers start on toned boards. It is something I’ll continue to recommend to my students. But should I keep doing it? That I can’t answer until I experiment on a white canvas. And that will wait until this workshop is over, because I only brought toned canvases with me.
While I’d like to say I’m thinking through this as a response to the Fiore paintings, there’s a small niggling part of me that’s still reacting to that woman’s comment. It’s a reminder that words have the power to inflict or bind wounds. Good advice is invaluable, in painting and in life. But may we all be as kind as Mary Byrom when we offer our opinions.
Thanks for writing this. I often start my day with your posts, and they give me good meat to chew on as I go about my routines. I had just been reading and listening to podcasts on similar topics, the need to be somewhat impervious to some comments, especially those which might incline us to question our own judgement in the desire to please others, or feed on the assumed need to sell our work. I think I'd noticed that your work seemed a little lower energy lately, but chalked it up to the yupo explorations, the headaches, the new environment, if I chalked it up to anything at all. And exploring and changing it up is good, of course, and even pleasing ME with your work, is not the goal. But I do like your red underpainting, fwiw. And as a result of seeing what you do, and what another painter I met this August does, I've been doing much more with underpainting in much more vibrant
red, or orange, depending in my subject and what I'm trying to accomplish. I like your peeks of red at the edges of things, and how it glows through the oranges, whites, and blues, giving them life without distracting me. But that's just me. Thanks for writing so eloquently, on so many topics that matter.
Why is there a need to presume any given way? All of these toning variations are tools in your toolbox. Look at Turner!!! He sometimes toned various parts of a single canvas in different colors as a way to set the mood for THAT part of the composition. Choose the tone for the idea at hand…
I think your reaction to that wreckless comment was understadible…but unnesessary. Your work is totally your work…not hers to judge! I personally think your style is brilliant and the red toning sets your paintings off beautifully…warming up all the greens amd giving a sense of life to your work…it does enhance your gorgeous paintings! I think it's fine you are experimenting with new and different ways to paint…but go with your heart, babe! You are so gifted with your heart in your ART! ♡
Thanks all. I guess my point was that I'm probably as confident as anyone, and if she could plant an idea in my head, it's a very great power to be able to shake people's thinking with chance words.
If a red ground was good enough for the Group of Seven, it's good enough for you! Perhaps she meant that she hated working with a red ground because she doesn't understand how to do it, and wanted to see how you have such success with it. You just never know! Keep painting and writing, I love reading your words each morning.
That's a GREAT point. I idolize the Group of Seven.