Sunday, July 24, 2011

active/passive side tree studies

"active" side - shadow side

"active" side - light side

One of the many points Scott made in his workshop was that when painting trees, always subordinate one side of the tree. Obviously, in ideal light, a tree will have a light side and a shadow side. And clearly, the way an artist handles the point at which these masses meet is vital. I think an equally valuable point, which Scott made again and again, is that a tree should have an "active" side and a "passive" side. I believe that some trees are more naturally inclined to reveal which side to subordinate:), but that's where the artist comes in. The eye loves variety, and this applies to trees as well.

In these two ten-minute studies, I was doing two things:
1. Testing panels : the first is a Wind River Arts linen, and the second is a RayMar cotton...
2. Subordinating a particular side in each. In the first, it was the light side that I played down in order to play up the shadow side. I attempted the opposite in the second study. I pretty much did these simultaneously, so that I could focus on both objectives at once.

-julie davis

7 comments:

Roeland van reem said...

Hi Julie!

Thank you for these Valuable hints.
Youre trees are very good!

Greetings
Roeland van Reem
The Netherlands

Linda Nickles said...

Excellent post on painting trees, Julie! Thanks for sharing. So, which panel did you prefer?

Janet Bludau Fine Art said...

Thank you for sharing the lesson. After reading and looking back at your 2 paintings several times we can see that you were successful.

Nancy Laliberte said...

These are wonderful, Julie!

claire christinel said...

Thanks for sharing this excellent concept Julie! Love your visuals to explain the point.

Kathy Cousart said...

Have always enjoyed your blog and have truly loved learning more through you with the Scott Series:) This is so interesting- love that thought on painting trees. Just makes good sense. These are beautifully painted!
I just made up some panels myself with some Claessens linen and love that. Which did you prefer?

mary maxam said...

very helpful. thanks for sharing-