Painting Winter's Light
Winter's Light, acryla gouache on canvas
Lessons Learned Painting the Colors of Winter
in a workshop by Nancy Smith Klos at Klos Studios
When Nancy Smith Klos at Klos Studios posted a flyer at Oregon Society of Artists earlier this year announcing a new workshop that focused on painting the colors of winter, I jumped at the opportunity. Long a fan of Claude Monet’s beautiful and subtle winter scenes, I was thrilled to learn that one of the paintings that we would be studying in the workshop in order to analyze the colors of winter was his famous La Pie (The Magpie).
I am the kind of artist that likes to jump in and start painting, so Nancy’s approach to having us first do a color wheel and mix together all of the complementary colors was, well, I have to admit, a little annoying at the time. But I am glad that I did it! Nancy knew something important about the colors of winter — that mixing complementary colors produces a vast array of beautiful neutrals that are very helpful when painting winter scenes.
To create our palettes, Nancy introduced us to a new medium for me, acryla gouache. That’s right! An acrylic and gouache polymer emulsion made by Holbein. In art school I had learned that acrylic and gouache don’t mix particularly well, but apparently Holbein did not get that lesson. This medium mixes well, has less of the margarine-y feel of acrylic that I hate, and DRIES FAST, so you have to WORK FAST! I usually paint slow as a snail so I knew this definitely was going to be a challenge! Nancy had us work from a 12 color Holbein set of acryla gouache. We began by mixing our primary red, primary yellow and primary blue (the set has a warm and cool red in it which we used to mix a primary red and so on). From there we mixed our secondary colors and one color in between each, which we arranged on a standard color wheel. Then the fun began! We mixed the opposite colors on the color wheel in varying degrees to come up with a beautiful array of neutrals.
I loved the next exercise! We looked at photos of winter scenes painted by Claude Monet, Childe Hassam, and Albert Bierstadt (among others) and selected one for a quick study. I selected Snow Impressionism (Fig. 1 below), a photo of a section of La Pie (The Magpie) by Claude Monet that Nancy provided. I referenced it and the color wheel that I had created the day before to create my palette.
To mix a winter palette that closely represented the colors that I saw in the reference photo, I created a dark by blending my primary red with my secondary green (both mixed from the colors in the Holbein set). To this color, I added white to create lighter versions of this dark, and Payne’s Grey to create my darkest dark. I used this same process, adding Titanium White or Jet Black (provided in the set) or Payne’s Grey (provided by Nancy) to each of the primary colors and complementary color mixes that I had learned how to create in the previous workshop session, to come up with a palette that closely matched the colors that I saw in the reference photo (See my palette in Fig. 3 above). I painted a daub of each color on note paper and made some cryptic notes beside each stating how I had arrived at it. (Note to self - be a little less cryptic and a little more organized next time!)
That done, I did a quick painted sketch of a section of La Pie (The Magpie) from the reference photo (Fig. 1 above). And I mean quick - that paint was drying fast! I was pleased with the outcome (See Fig. 2 above), even though it was a little too pinkish in the snow (but then I do tend to see the world through rose colored glasses) and my Magpie obviously had been dining a little too well compared to Monet’s graceful bird! While I had not replicated the photo or Monet’s beautiful painting exactly, I had learned how to mix most of the colors. I was excited and looking forward to the next session of the workshop.
For the home stretch, Nancy had us bring in a photo of our own choosing for our final painting. I selected a lovely photo of my artist gardens from my Winter 2008 photography book that I had created for my family and published myself using Apple iPhoto and publishing services.
“In December, 2008 we had an unusual and plentiful snowfall in the Portland, OR area that lasted for two weeks instead of the usual two days, and I thought that this would be a great subject for my painting.”
I sketched in the major elements by gridding the photo (Upper Left and Right in Fig. 4 below), then set about mixing my colors. I used some of the colors that I had learned from the Monet study in the workshop and created some new colors on the fly. I was only about half-finished my painting by the end of the workshop (Lower Right in Fig. 4 below), but felt confident that I had learned the necessary skills to finish it in my home studio.
I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop by Nancy Smith Klos and highly recommend that you check out her upcoming workshops at Klos Studios and watch for her announcements in the Brushmarks newsletter published by Oregon Society of Artists. Nancy excels at breaking down a complex process into easily understood bite-size morsels and provides great feedback and individual attention along the way. She recently opened a new studio in Southeast Portland and will be having an open house there on August 22, 2013 5-8PM.
I will be sitting the gallery at Oregon Society of Artists on August 15, 2013 from1-4PM and I would love to give you a personal tour of all of the paintings on display in the Student-Teacher show, and talk to you more in person about my painting. The gallery is located at 2185 S.W. Park Place, Portland, OR 97205 and viewing hours are Tuesday to Sunday 1-4PM, except holidays. Call (503) 228-0706 for information.
You can download a copy of this blog post in PDF format here.
Anna Porter Artist
Fine Art & Digital Photography
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