Light and Colour on Canvas

My ability to capture the painting the way envision is sometimes a little hit or miss . There are people who enjoy them but sometimes the paintings are not conveying the feelings that I want. I am not always sure why ‘the miss’ but these paintings just don’t work. It not the technical drawing part as that seems to be accurate enough for what I like.  The values are also within the right range.

That only leaves colour and brush work.  To better understand why and improve my abilities I though I would do a series on clouds as I know from experience these can be difficult and what a better way to learn that to challenge yourself with something hard.

In the first painting I undertook was of some stormy clouds on Britannia Bay in Ottawa looking west with the sun almost setting and peeking through the lighter clouds near the horizon. The photo image I took is shown below the painting.

Stormy Purple Clouds Oil Painting

16X20 oil on stretched canvas

I had decided not to make the cloud colour realistic but to have a cooler hue (red-blue) in the darker areas and gradually progressing  redder as they lighten up.

The painting was painted in one-session but upon looking at it the next day I felt that some cloud areas did not look correct and it also lacked some punch.  I touched up cloud patterns and added deeper blue to the very darkest parts and some red-orange highlights to parts of clouds, sunlit sky and water which then seemed to give it more life and tied all the pieces together.

Stormy Clouds Britania Bay Ottawa

There was another quick painting I tried but it didn’t work at all. I went with realistic colour representations and I just didn’t like it. I will try the same scene again with another approach until I can get to interpretation I like.

As a photographer artist also, I created the B&W photo below and with Photoshop tools added more emphasis and contrast to the lighter parts and gave a slight warm tone.

B&W Stormy Clouds at Britania Ottawa

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Niels Henriksen

May’s challenge for the virtual painter challenge blog was Czechoslovakia.  The is not a place that Google street view has an over-abundance of images but I did manage to find 5 views I liked.

I finally settled on a canal scene just off the main river that runs through central Prague as buildings is not something I have done a lot of.

Prague Canal - Oil Painting

11”x14” oil on stretched canvas

Below is the Google street view image. For the painting I took 2 screen shots and combined them in Photoshop to get more height on image.
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Niels Henriksen

There is something fun with taking on a challenge being it either with photography or painting. I find these challenges a great method to stimulate my own creativity.

I guess it has to do, at least for me, with there being no expectations of achieving anything useful with the finished art work. Not that I don’t want it to turn out well, and not that I don’t try, its just with time-limited challenges I’m never quite sure of the outcome. With my other paintings I tend to agonize about the composition, colours and almost very other aspect of it being ‘right’ . Whatever that really means.

I have a  artist friend in Ottawa and we like to give each other a painting challenges once a month. The best part is we each know each others current work and therefore we strive to find short challenges that will take you out of your comfort zone. Hopefully not too far.

Painting Challenge from B&W Image

Oil painting on 6”x12” gesso primed board.

The challenge:
Produce a painting from the B&W image in 30 minutes.
I don’t use acrylics, at least not yet, so oil is the medium of choice.

While at times I do strive for a 1 or 2 hour session from start to finish with my other work I at least  do have the option of stopping and waiting for the paint to dry and continue later if its becoming a bit too wet to make useful changes.

Not with these challenges. It therefore becomes a bit tricky to get the paint laid down correctly in thickness otherwise I can’t add new paint as I only end up pushing the previous layers around.

I was allowed to plan the approach which is a good thing because 30 minutes sure goes by very quickly and I needed every second.
I knew I would be using the palette knife to scrap away the paint to create the lighter grasses. I just wish I could have toned the board with a light ochre to make these grasses a little more natural in colour (tan) as opposed to stark whiteness of the board. Oh well it’s not about creating a perfect painting but about having fun.

I learned I needed a better assortment of tools (widths) to scrap away paint. The palette knife was too fine and even the end of the paint handle was not thick enough as I had to go over it several times to make the line thicker. I also wish I had not made the grasses so horizontal across the top, but still for the most part the painting seemed to work.

On My Camera World Blog of often discuss photographic challenges that readers can try themselves.

Niels Henriksen

Purple Iris Duotone

I set up  a purple Iris flower in my studio and used a white background to simply the composition. While the flower is naturally very saturated with purple petals and bright yellow stamens I noticed when I opened the file the texture in the viens and though if I converted to b&W I could bring these feature out better. Once converted I though a purple duotone would add a little more life into the image.

It now has a soft feel of a watercolour painting.

Niels Henriksen

While definitely over photographed and very common I still enjoy the colours and texture of tulips and I can’t resit the urge to photograph them every now and then.

Purple Tulip and Yellow Dandelion

The colour of the tulip was a little more purple in the filed. I did try and change it to more a blue to compliment the yellow of the dandelion in the background, but the effect was not quite right. I found the magenta  more pleasing. I added a hint of blue into the highlights of the petals  to give vibrant glow with the change in colour temperature.

White paper appears whiter with a light tone of blue added.

Niels Henriksen

Canary Island painting at the corner of Calle de Magellon / AV Reyes de Espana /Calle Captain Numez

6″x8″ Oil on Canvas board

This was painted as part of the monthly challenge on The Virtual Paintout were many artist paint images using Google Street View from a predetermined location.

I find these smaller sizes a bit difficult to paint as you need to be real steady for the fine details.

Niels Henriksen

One thing I am enjoying about this blog is being able to experiment more with different art forms. I have for a while wanted to do more with video then just capture interesting family moments.

The old pc with has dual large monitors would choke up with the playing of any ordinary video and HD almost seems to freeze it up permanently. It was so frustrating simply trying to watch a video I captured, let alone do anything intelligent with it.

I have now upgraded to windows 7 (64-bit) 12GB of Ram, Nvidia 2GB video card and 7 processors.  There is no comparison between the 2 workstations, this one just hums along.

Now is the painful part of trying to migrate all the programs over and for a few like Photoshop an upgrade will be required.

Last summer while sitting in the backyard I noticed how the strong winds would first rattle the leaves in the trees near me and then migrate down across the fields and into the trees at the far end.  I though it might be interesting to capture a few videos and see if any of the sessions dramatically showed the gusts move through the landscape.  The undersides of leaves turn whitish when blown in the wind.

I set the video camera on a tripod so it could capture above the hedge and let it film every time I though that a boisterous gust would come into play.

It wasn’t until later while reviewing the footage that I noticed in one of the scenes a singular girl, in a bright blue summer dress, waltz down long the path and then turn and walk across the meadows.

This scene seemed to bring a certain feeling of nostalgia and wonderment that I decided to make a video clip. Unfortunately at the time an airplane could be heard overhead and I began the search for a suitable song.

The one I selected is ‘Maid with the Flaxen Hai’r by Richard Stolzman, Slovak Symphony Orchestra, It came with the pc and turned out to work the best, Go figure. There is a part where there is a bit of a crescendo in and this corresponds with a bright patch of sun moving across the scene.

Click on link below for HD version

Girl in Blue Dress Walking in Summer Fields from Niels Henriksen on Vimeo.

I hope you don’t find it too ordinary or boring (non-action) and are able to enjoy the great summer day.

Niels Henriksen

While visiting some friends who have unique landscapes, rocky and hilly, on their property, I decided to try and photograph some interesting texture and patterns that developed naturally on the rock faces.

Rock wall at 5,500C

The above image was created on calibrated monitor with screen temperature set at 5,500C (degrees centigrade)

There was subtle colour on rock faces, stains from many years of weathering and with pink quartz in the area and sometimes it shows up in the light stain marks.

I used Photoshop to make these colours more vivid, not too much more than as it was actually observed. Clear blue sky on snow covered pond and not much direct sun of the rock face is why there is a lot of blue lighter parts.

I knew from past experience that red-blues (magentas and violets) become very blue when viewed on a standard monitor that is set to a temp of 7,000C and even worse when set to very bright 9,000C.

Rock wall at 7,000C

The above image was developed for a monitor set at 7,000C and compared to original image on the Calibrated monitor

I therefore developed a second image so viewers, who use the higher temp and that is everyone who hasn’t calibrated their monitor, could better set how I had intended the image to look.

Remember that when viewing images with subtle tones that there may be too much blue in all the colours do to the high temperature setting.

Why don’t I develop for the higher temp setting?

Its because I use an end-to-end color calibrated system and printer proofing, so that when I work in Photoshop I know my printed image will match my monitor reasonably close.  For any fine-art type photographs there is always a little tweaking for the denser tones, especially if hints of colour in the darker shadows.

In the article on My Camera World blog; Web Makes Poor Place for Photographs I discuss this in further detail.

Niels Henriksen

Stormy Day off Nykobing Mors

16” x 20”

Oil on Canvas

One of my first larger painting that I completed. It was painted in my studio with the aid of a photograph. I is just south of Nykobing Mors in Denmark. This spit of land was being lit by sunlight streaming through the clouds and striking the marsh grasses which formed interesting patterns and textures.  The water is an inland sea in Jutland and therefore salt-water. There were distant hills at the horizon but I prefer it better without.

I am not sure it’s finished, as I don’t feel the water quite conveys the windiness of the day and even though it is grayed down the blue may still be a little intense. There were no large waves but maybe a little white specs to indicate more action in the water.

Stormy Day off Nykobing Mors close-up with texture

This is a close-up with the light striking from the side to better show some of the paint and brush textures.  As a learning exercise I did enjoy the wet-in-wet scumbling of the trees in the front as it seemed to work. I also liked the looseness of the grasses on the spit.

Niels Henriksen

After many continuous days of overcast skies the sun has finally made it’s way back to grace us. It’s only at this point that you start to realize how prolonged non-sunny days has an effect on your overall mood. For me, there’s excitement with sunshine.

I did decide to try and capture a set of shots of the snow eggs with this different lightning. I enjoy experimenting, never quite sure how it’s going to turn out.

Snow Egg

In this version I wanted almost full contrast, not any blue-blacks, but close.

The dappled light that came through the cedar bushes were like tiny strobe lights. Its amazing how quickly this light moves across the snow.

At this time of day there is a larger patch of light to the right which gave too much of a high-lit area that it would dominate the other eggs in and the same dark background.

While the shadows are great on snow-covered landscapes I find unless it’s all about the shadow patterns, snow images are harder to get translate from the vision. How to describe snow with an photo, there’s a fine balance between contrast, detail and softness.

You should always take time to play, to coach something from nothing and then to see how it turns out.

Niels Henriksen

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Snow Eggs