A recent painting, almost finished, posed a problem for me. A line of trees, dark and prominent in the landscape, draws the attention of the figures in the foreground. You could say that you could avoid this problem at first by painting the trees in a looser way.
That’s true. But it is not the style that I have developed. I need a way to work around the problem while staying true to my own art.
Because my art is a story, I start with the action of the stage that I invented for this painting.
- Three armed police officers gallop down an Outback track. In the paddock behind them, sheep graze near a tree-lined stream. During the ‘Shearers’ War’ of the 1890s, arson posed the worst threat to landowners in the West. The fires started by the rebels destroyed the pastures. Starving stock. Burnt wool sheds. Bush workers lost their jobs.
My riders scramble to avoid arson. Maybe they can smell danger in the air?
There is my solution!
- I mix a drop of Titanium White into a pot full of medium. Using a wide sable brush, I brush the translucent mixture over a section of trees, then back up to check the result. Smoke from an invisible grass fire spreads across the paddock, enveloping the trees in a gray-white mist. The horsemen now take center stage.
But this smoke effect is too obvious.
- With a dry brush, I clean off a layer of the newly applied polish. Something still offends my eye. On impulse, my thumb moves between the branches of a group of trees, kicking up dabs of wet paint.
That is all!
- Now, we seem to see the veil of smoke moving in the air as the leaves sway in the breeze created by the heat of the distant fire.
At lunch time with my partner, we watch a documentary about the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child’. After 15 years of work on this painting, Leonardo left it unfinished when he died in 1519. A team of specialists began their task in 2009, finishing it in 2012.
I gasped in surprise at what they discovered. The solution that I had just ‘invented’ for my problem was the same one that Leonardo solved 500 years ago.
The video showed Leonardo’s thumbprint in places where he kicked up the wet frosting of white and gray mist that spread over the prominent trees behind the figures. This technique is called ‘sfumato’.
- You may feel frantic about a painting problem that you think is hopeless. It’s time to put down the tools. Set the piece aside where you can catch a glimpse of it while you work on a new one. A solution will come to you, as has happened with artists throughout time. When it does, have faith in yourself to use it.