The Artist's Road Painting the World's Beautiful Places

Painting the Ideal Summer

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Summer Fields     9 x 12"     John Hulsey

   In many ways, Summer is a very interesting time for art making, one which is filled with the distractions and pleasures of the outdoors. Should I paint or lie in the hammock? (I waited all winter for this!) It can be surprisingly difficult on some days, to get serious about work.

   Those days when we do get serious and head off to work en plein air, the predominance of green creates the biggest challenge. We look at that as an opportunity to learn to see subtle variations in the green hues and color temperatures all around us. Painting the same location once in the morning and again in the afternoon teaches volumes about the temperature shifts that occur in summer greens throughout the day. The real trick, we've found, is to take more time, slow down and enjoy just looking at the subject. Unlike winter work, longer summer days mean more time to spend on looking and painting. These moments teach us more about seeing and mixing those color variations which help to create interest and excitement. It is a never-ending set of enjoyable lessons which can also give free rein to one’s imagination.

   Using those observations, what I often wind up painting is not so much what I’m looking at, but my vision of an idealized summer landscape, without the heat, sweat or bugs. If done deftly, the average person will never realize the large amount of artistic license used. This is the purpose of artistic studies—to gain the technical mastery needed to create our own new worlds from the raw material in front of us. To help our fellow painters augment their knowledge of green, we have written several articles about the different ways one can mix greens and which greens are favored by artists and why. Give them a read here and let us know if we’ve missed anything.

   Happy painting!