Landscape painting - Being enchanted.

George Innes , who painted the wonderfully atmospheric landscape scene above, "Pool in the Woods" in 1892, said:

"I don't illustrate travel guide books, madame, I paint paintings"

Lovely, isn't it.  Learning to paint good landscapes is so much more than running around with a camera, snapping picture postcard shots, and then, subsequently trying to reproduce that image as a painting.  WHAT FOR?  You have the photo.  Do you also need to paint from it?   If so, why?  Do you have something more to say about the scene that the camera was not able to capture?  I hope so.

Having something personal to say about the scene, is, in my opinion, what makes the difference between a landscape painting which grabs your attention, and a landscape painting which could be used to illustrate a travel guide book.

It is the reason why I often recommend to students that they BEGIN WITH A TITLE.   Giving "voice" to your thoughts helps you to find out what it is about the scene that caught your attention.  After all, the world is full of gorgeous views and wonderful corners - you can sit and drink in a fabulous scene without too much thinking about it, just feeling admiration.  It isn't enough, if you want to create a painting with more meaning to it than a photo.    You might as well get out your camera and just use that.  As a painter, you can do, and say,  more than a camera ever can.

Look at these images.    Loriann Signori's atmospheric images lean towards abstraction but are recognisably landscapes. She confesses a fascination for fields - for this picture, she said "the fields in Washington always enchant me".  She was ENCHANTED.  And so the painting is enchanting.

 

 



Sarah Bee - "Totness Storm Approaching" - this is not just a topographical landscape painting - there is a very strong feeling of storm, from the specific quality of light, to the interesting and unusual treatment of the foreground which speaks to me not just of a tree line, but also a dark, brooding presence, much like heavy storm clouds.  The concept for the painting is very clear indeed.

 

 

I could show you many more images all of which have a strong message...but I think I have made the point well enough for a blog post.  If you find yourself sitting with a group of painters one day on a landscape course,  wondering what on earth to choose from all the glory around you, or at home, picking up a photo to work from, and seeing it as a shopping list.....3 trees, 1 valley, 6 bushes, 4 cows....PLEASE think again. Think how you felt when you spotted that scene.  What was IMPORTANT about it, or perhaps, if not important, then at least fascinating, interesting, eye-catching.    Decide on the TITLE for your painting.  Write it down.  If you cannot think of a title, then just write a whole paragraph about the scene, putting down everything you can think of, all the memories.     Then a title will come to you.  The title should have some meaning beyond just the name of the beach, or valley, or part of the world in question.   Consider the weather.........the temperature...........the atmosphere...........the unique whatever-it-was that you found enchanting.

 

I do not consider myself a strong landscape painter.  I do not enjoy solitary excursions into unpopulated landscape - far too nervous -   so people inevitably creep into most of my images, and take over from the landscape.  But I really enjoyed painting in Venice;  I particularly loved the special light of early morning, and the way that the canals always reflected the skies and the light in the scene - water in a landscape always fascinates me.  So this could have been called "Venice Grand Canal View"....but actually, it's name is "Light and Reflections, Venice".

 

 

I was enchanted by this scene.  Be enchanted, and then perhaps your paintings will enchant others.