Trees

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-29739284

You will enjoy this story about champion trees in England, shared by my friend Mary Jane.

I've been working on Palms for this study rotation. I do ten painting of each subject in small format. It really improves my technique.

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A rotation of tree studies

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

I have been doing ten 8x10 studies of various subjects for the Daily Paintworks web site. I'm in the middle of a 10 day study of trees. I could paint trees for a hundred years and still be completely intrigued by them.  These studies keep me in study mode, which is the best place to be for a painter in my opinion. There are too many advanced painters who stop studying painting when they become established. I will always be a student of painting and these tree studies help me to advance my skill level. 

Live Oak 3 Study

8x10 inches

Acrylic on canvas panel

A big painting

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

The above paintings are possible compositions for my next 40x60 inch Live Oak Painting. I sold the 40x60 painting I had in the town studio on Thursday. I have ordered a new canvas which will arrive in about 2 weeks, so I am busy doing various composings  for the next big painting. 

I'll do some miniatures as well to help me decide on palette as well. It is always exciting for me to do a large format tree painting. I can only do them as one sells. It is very hard for me to store large paintings and expensive to do. I'm excited!

A new Tree Painting

Trees

16x20 inches

Oil on canvas

www.lindablondheim.com

Notes From My Tree Painting Journal

This is the first painting I did at my new studio space. I enjoyed it. I used the same palette that I practiced with in the pine forest at Wekiva State Park. I am finding that I really like the simplicity of the  greens mixed with the palette. 

I'll soon be painting the brilliant colors of Spring. 

Update on the Tree Commission

36 x 61 inches

Oil on canvas

I'm ready to show this painting to my collectors, hoping they will be pleased. I only have the bottom edge to paint, after the other edges are dry. I love hanging big paintings on the featured wall at my studio. My collectors will look at it tomorrow. I really love painting big trees.

Pines at Merritt Island Wildlife Preserve

Tree Paintings

Notes From my Tree Journal

This was a wonderful part of the wildlife preserve, right off the paved road. I was there around 9:30 AM when the light was in transition across the field of pines. I really love pine hammocks. I used a birch panel for this painting and it really gives me a different surface than the stretched canvas.The paint has a flatter quality and is harder to soften. It also has a much more atmospheric quality on this surface. The paint stroke is more separated if that makes sense, giving a more deliberate stroke, les blended than painting on canvas. It's fun to experiment with different support surfaces.

Red Cedar at Merritt Island National Wildlife Preserve

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

I got the time to finish this painting today in the studio. These Red Cedars were especially lovely at Merritt Island Wildlife Preserve. Because of the harsh climate, many of them are missing large parts of their canopy, exposing the beautiful trunks and limbs. They have much more character than the cedars that grow in my neighborhood. They have a wild and interesting growth. Lots of them have broken off limbs. I suppose they are whipped around a lot during coastal storms. They look quite old.

I used the following palette for the painting:

cadmium red light

cadmium orange

yellow ochre

lemon yellow

ultramarine blue

thalo blue

titanium white

mars black

Trees in My Yard II

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

This painting  is 9x12 inches on stretched canvas.

I started this painting yesterday and finished it today in the studio from a reference photo I took in the field next to my yard. To me, light and contrast make this painting. I wanted the largest tree, on the right, to be the star with the other two trees as supporting characters. So I gave the right tree the most texture and strongest contrast in light. I also found the weeds and small flowers around the trunks to be very interesting. I made the path more prominent than it really was, to lead the viewer into the painting. I enjoy these small paintings. They give me ideas and technique building to do larger paintings later.

A conversation about trees

Tree Paintings

Notes From my Tree Journal

I had an interesting discussion with my friend Teresa yesterday. She is a school teacher. She was looking around the Loft Studio and thinking about the tree paintings. We got to talking about what trees mean to us and she feels that trees represent stability and reliability to her. She feels strength in knowing that the trees are always there for her and that she can lean on them for comfort and strength. I love it that she shared those feelings with me, as I feel that too. I don't want to give you the idea that I am silly about trees, I'm not, but I do feel they are a very special part of our world and they have much to teach us.

Painting Trees en mass

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

Painting a large mass of trees can be difficult and confusing to the beginner. It is easier to do when you develop the pattern of tree shapes as you process through the mass of trees. You will begin to see areas of dark, light. and mid tone values and it also helps if you get a good feel for the changes in color temperature in the tree masses. Here in the south it also helps to use the Spanish Moss and large tree limbs and trunks as markers throughout the painting to give you an idea of where you are. It is easy to be completely overwhelmed by the various shades of green and multiple shapes and values, so it's a good idea to do a couple of value maps of the scene before you begin. Here in Florida you are liable to see this kind of scenery everywhere, dense, jungles of various textures and lots of subtle differences in color temperatures throughout.

One thing to be careful of is not overdeveloping the sky and land mass around the trees unless you want to negate the trees as the area of interest. Since the tree masses were the area of interest for me in this scene, I left the grasses very simple, and muted the cloud formations in the sky.

Oak Trees

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

A reader inquired about Bur Oak trees. I was not familiar with them because they don't grow around these parts, so I did a bit of research on them HERE. I have asked my friend Rick Knellinger to write a bit about the trees he has on his land at Fair Oaks. I will post that for you when he has time to write.

My favorite oak is the Live Oak which grows prolifically here in North Central Florida. I can't seem to paint them enough as they are fascinating to me. HERE

Just about done

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

I'm just about done with this painting. I sure enjoyed the process. I will take a look at it in the morning with fresh eyes to see if it needs any tweaking but I feel satisfied. These big trees are quite a challenge. I will do this one again, probably in a larger format next summer when I have more time.

The Work in Progress

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

I have made some progress on this 18x24 painting this week.  I expect to finish it tomorrow unless the Loft Studio has a lot of visitors. I have two painting studios, one in the city called the Loft where visitors can come anytime. My other painting studio is in a no frills concrete block building behind my home in rural north Florida, about 17 miles from the city.

I really like this tree and this will not be the last painting I do of it. I would like to do a large format painting, about 30x40 or 40x48. That would be a wonderful process. I will learn this tree with this painting and then give it another shot in a large format , perhaps next summer when I have lots of quiet studio time. 

I find that I often want to do multiples of a single subject in various sizes and shapes, in order to really understand it.

A Work in Progress

Notes From my Tree Journal

I don't have an image of the painting yet but I'm working on an 18x24 painting of the above tree reference photo. The tree is growing in the new field at Fair Oaks in Evinston Florida. It is a magnificent Live Oak, simply massive. I'm well into the painting and should be through in a few days. I'll post it when I'm done.

Some of my students have asked me about my tree painting methods and I try to work in an organic way. By that, I mean that I don't do large linear strokes, just filling in the shapes and color. Instead, I vary the direction of my brush strokes, sometimes crossing over the shape in sideways brush direction, changing from warm to cool bark color back and forth, mixing purples, grays, blues, reds, oranges into the various parts of the tree as I go.Giving bark texture in some areas and some areas without so much texture. I like to push some limbs to another plane by cooling them as they recede into blues and grays. Trees are alive and they need that feel to them. They are not static brown and green like so many painters portray them. They are not predictable and drab. The canopy in this particular tree is so heavy and low to the ground that in order to paint it, I had to step under the canopy inside the core to the trunk, as that is the most interesting part. It is like a secret place inside. Because of this, most of the canopy in the painting will be behind the trunk area, and less important than the trunk and limbs. All of these issues have to be considered in a painting. So many decisions have to be made along the way.

Tuscawilla Prairie Trees

Tree Paintings

Notes From my Tree Journal

I've been doing a few small paintings of trees at Tuscawilla Prairie. Last week when  I was there, I was able to get quite a few reference photos after I did my first painting. This week while people are out shopping, I'm in the loft studio for extended hours and so I'm taking advantage of the extra studio time to study those photos of trees at the prairie.

This is a limited palette of:

Trans Red Iron Oxide

Ultramarine Blue

Ivory Black

Titanium White

Cadmium Yellow Medium

Cadmium Yellow Lemon

Yellow ochre

Cadmium Red Light

Expanded from the palette I have been using a lot lately by adding the cad medium yellow and trans red iron oxide.

Using Color Notes

Notes From my Tree Journal

In the fall now it is staying light until about 6:15, so the light is fantastic from 4:30 to 6:00 PM.

I love to soak it up looking at the fields on fire with light, the red in the swamp maples and in the tops of the pines. The sky is too hard to believe on some days with dark blue clouds rimmed in impossibly orange light. Let's face it. God is a much better painter than I am.

All the way home down the rural roads I gawk at the landscape in the late afternoon light. So, you think, what good does that do?

When I get home I get out my note pad and my color pencils/markers and I make color notes for future charting. While the memory is fresh, I write down most of the color I saw, the time of day, the places on trees where I was most likely to find the unusual effects of light and the sky shapes, colors and formations. I clip my written notes to my color notes above and store them. Because I have learned the art of observation, after having spent much of my time painting in the field and observing, I am able to close my eyes and remember most of what I saw, hours later. These little color notes are a bit of information that prompts my memory later, when I might need them.

One of these days, I'll be doing a painting and those notes and color charts will come in handy. Not to mention that this kind of research is just plain fun to do.

Learning with a study series

Tree Paintings

Notes From My tree Journal

I have found that one of the best ways to improve skills is by working on a series of small paintings with the same theme. Right now, I am studying Cabbage palms as we call them, also known as Sabal palms. I'll do 10 - 20 5x7 paintings one after the other to study different ways, color palettes, backgrounds, etc. to learn painting techniques. I'll study leaf canopy, trunks, texture, sky behind the palms and tree canopies behind the palms to come up with good ways to paint them. This gathered information will come in handy to paint palms into larger format paintings.

I have done these theme paintings in small format for about 30 years.It is non threatening, ok to make mistakes and a great way to learn about painting trees for me.

A study of the Cellon Oak in Alachua County

Cellon Oak Tree Painting

Notes From My Tree Journal

Yesterday I joined the Hogtown Plein Air Painters for their Sunday paint out. They were going to Cellon Oak Park, which is about 3 miles form my house so it was very convenient. I usually paint alone but it is one of my favorite painting spots in my neighborhood and I always enjoy painting the famous Cellon Oak. It is a massive tree, supposedly the largest live oak in Florida. My little 8x10 inch painting can't begin to do justice to it, but I really enjoyed studying it.

 Painting a tree that large in a small format immediately presents problems. It is almost overwhelming. Fitting it into the picture plane is prohibitive. If you fit it into the little format it looks insignificant, If you do it as I did, you have to crop it to give the viewer a notion of just how huge it really is. I did this painting in large format about 8 months ago and it was easier, though still difficult to show it's huge mass.

It's one of those challenging trees that I will continue to paint, hoping to get it right.

Figuring Out Light

Tree Paintings

Notes From My Tree Journal

I apologise for the wrong rotation of this image. I can't seem to get blogger to insert it in the right direction. Anyhoo, the main focus of my work as a painter is light and atmosphere in the landscape and how to successfully portray them. This 9x12 painting was an experiment in light beams and how they strike trees. I had a pretty good time with this. The location is a favorite field for me at Fair Oaks in Evinston, FL. Field Three, as it is called, is a magical place full of glorious trees. I just happened to be there at the right time to see this lovely sun beam cut across the two trees. A lot of the beam was done with layers of thin paint with glazing medium and then going back over it with opaque paint in some spots.  This is my first effort with sunbeams on trees, so I'm sure to improve my technique as I study the light on location further.

 

Trees with a Painting Knife

Tree Paintings

Notes From my Tree Journal

Saturday I taught a knife painting workshop in my Loft Studio. Naturally I used trees as my subject for the above demo painting. I don't often paint with only the knife. To me the best paintings use both brush and knife, but I needed to do it all with my knives to show my class you actually can do a painting from start to finish with them. Unlike most painting knife painters, I don't like thick paint. I usually scrape the paint quite thinly over the surface of the support, in multiple layers. Acrylics are an excellent medium for painting knife because they are clean and crisp; drying very quickly to paint multiple layers. My two favorite paintings knives are the long narrow oval and the slanted chisel edged knife.