36 artistApril 2016 http://www.painters-online.co.uk
L
ast month I looked at a simple
standard method for indirectly
painting simple but luminous skies.
This time I’d like to explore how we can
flex that to create some common tricks
such as sunsets, nocturnes, haze, rain,
shadows and so forth. But what’s the
point of all this visual trickery?
Well, to paraphrase Constable, just as
the sky sets the feeling for any landscape
painting, light can do the same for still
life, interior or portrait work. Flood a
canvas with softly glowing shadows and
you’ll create a wonderfully atmospheric
figure study, still life or portrait, for
instance.
While I personally prefer to work
directly, and generally agree with Matisse
that paintings should be essentially flat
and decorative, I’ve found my training in
classical optics and optical management
to be invaluable in making these things
lively – and painting skies is the best way
to grasp it.Opacity and translucency
The key to understanding luminosity is to
appreciate that paintings reflect, rather
than emit light. So taking this to its logical
conclusion a picture can only be as
luminous as the ground on which it is
painted, which in turn means that all
‘light’ in a picture is in a sense just an
illusion or visual trick.
This trickery starts by managing where
and how light reflects back from your
painting. A simple way to see this is to
coat two white panels, the first with a wet
mix of red and white paint, the second
with a thin coat of red. Where the wet red
and white are mixed the reflection of light
will be dull, even and flat, as light cannot
penetrate a paint film. When this occurs
we say the picture is lit by the fall of light.
Conversely the thin red over white panel
will seem to ‘glow’ because it allows light
to pass through it and back from the
white panel beneath it. In this case the
red is being ‘lit’ from behind by theOILS
In the second of his four-part series, Martin Kinnear
explains how to achieve special light effects in oil
painting for a variety of weather conditions
2Improve your oils
Martin Kinnear
is a professional oil painter and course
director at the Norfolk Painting School,
which offers courses for painters new to
oils as well as practising oil painters.
Find out more at http://www.norfolk
paintingschool.comor call Jane on
01328 730203 or via jane@norfolk
paintingschool.comStudy after Turner,oil, 20 24in
(51 61cm).
Turbid glazes create very soft luminosity