Painting demonstration follow-up

My Calistoga • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Wondering how that demonstration painting turned out? You can see the results (so far – it's not completely finished yet) above, and I posted the process here:

Painting Demos at the Napa County Fair (the beginnings of the painting)

"My Calistoga" - continued progress (everything done after the fair ended)

You can see lots of scumbling and tinted collage elements, and get some ideas about combining collage and painted elements in an art piece.

If the collage elements intrigue you, I teach them in my Painting Collages workshop, which is coming up this Saturday, July 23rd, at the Calistoga Art Center. You can find more information at www.NapaValleyArtWorkshops.com/painting-collages1.html.

Remember scumbling?

Three Palms for Gail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Scumbling (sounds like stumbling, but with a "k" sound) is, for me, one of the most useful techniques an artist can learn. I've used it in several places throughout the painting above. It's a particular kind of brushwork – using it, you can create wonderfully magical effects. To scumble, you drag a dry brush lightly loaded with paint across another color.

Detail, Three Palms for Gail • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

When might you use it? Anytime you want a transitional area between colors (in portraits, in landscape paintings, in painting skies, for example). Above, it not only helped create an atmospheric effect in the skies and distant mountains, but it also added a kind of laciness to the palm fronds. Scumbling is a way of blending color that allows the viewer to blend the colors with their eyes....

Want to learn more? Here are two earlier posts that discuss it thoroughly:

Scumbling shows how scumbling was used by Rembrandt and Modigliani in portraits.

Scumbling video lesson with Jan Blencowe links to a demonstration of the scumbling technique that Blencowe uses to create a beautifully atmospheric sky.

Painting with knives - Charles W. Hawthorne

Charles W. Hawthorne, detail of The Bath – Portrait of Emelyn Nickerson with Baby, 1915

Charles W. Hawthorne (1872 – 1930) was an influential American painter and teacher. In 1899 he opened the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which became an important American art school, and where each summer he taught plein air painting.

Charles W. Hawthorne, detail of The Bath – Portrait of Emelyn Nickerson with Baby, 1915

Some of his paintings from the nineteen-teens were lovely, luminous portraits using a lot of scumbling, such as you can see in these details of The Bath – Portrait of Emelyn Nickerson with Baby, from 1915. Many of these are portraits of common people, often doing ordinary things – not society portraits. In some portraits from this time you do see lines looking as though they were created with a palette or painting knife.

Charles W. Hawthorne, White Church, 1920

But by the 1920s, Hawthorne was using palette and painting knives to a much greater extent. Because of his influence as a teacher, he popularized their use. Here you can see how he used palette and painting knives to paint White Church; Town View, Provincetown; and Willows, all circa 1920.

Charles W. Hawthorne, Town View – Provincetown, 1920

Notice the broad, flat strokes of white for the building, and the wide, dark strokes of a fence below, contrasted with the narrow reddish fence posts and lines of the trees and tree branches, all looking distinctly un-brushy?

Charles W. Hawthorne, detail of Town View – Provincetown, 1920

Notice the interesting texture and feeling of spontaneity? Painting and palette knives can allow you to paint more quickly and spontaneoudly.

Charles W. Hawthorne, Willows, 1920

There is a local-ish connection here, too. Noted colorist Camille Przewodek, who lives in neighboring Sonoma County, studied with Henry Hensche, who was a student of and assistant to Hawthorne, and who continued teaching in Provincetown after Hawthorne's death. Although it may be tough to see a connection with these paintings, it is clearer when you see the colors Hawthorne began using later in the 20's. You can see more of Hawthorne's work here, at www.the-athenaeum.org.

Scumbling video lesson with Jan Blencowe

Using a scumbling technique to create atmosphere in a sky is a helpful video demonstration of scumbling by painter Jan Blencowe, with clear explanation and instruction.

In this demonstration, she uses a short-handled bristle brush from a hardware store, and shows clearly how she gets paint off the brush before working on the canvas, leaving a nice, dry brush. She applies the paint with a circular, scrubby stroke, creating a kind of veil of color over the color underneath, and giving a lovely atmospheric feeling to the sky in this painting.

You can also find Jan Blencowe's work on her website at www.janblencowe.com and on her blog at www.thepaintingadayproject.com.

Scumbling

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669), Titus at His Desk

Here are two very different portraits, by Rembrandt and by Modigliani, that each use the technique of scumbling. Rembrandt's is a portrait of his son, Titus.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606 – 1669), detail of Titus at His Desk

To scumble is to drag a dry brush with opaque or semi-opaque paint across another dried layer, and color, of paint, in such a way that allows you to see the color underneath. Often, as in these paintings, lighter colors are scumbled across darker ones, which creates beautiful light, drama, and texture.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920), Maud Abrantes

Scumbling allows you to transition, beautifully and subtly, between light and dark passages, or between colors. Notice how it creates an almost pearlescent appearance in Modigliani's portrait of Maud Abrantes?

Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920), detail, Maud Abrantes

By scumbling lightly over the darker underground, Modigliani created beautiful areas of shadow, particularly on her neck.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884 – 1920), detail, Maud Abrantes

Using a thin undercoat allows you to use the texture of the canvas, as you scumble across the top, as you can see clearly in this detail.

Don't limit yourself to painting light colors over dark ones – this technique is useful with any color or value combination.

Karen Lynn Ingalls, detail, Sunset Meadow

Here is a detail of clouds at sunset from a painting of mine. Although the colors and values are more subtle than the examples above, layers of scumbling created the hazy color transitions and feelings of light and dark in the clouds that I wanted.