I find myself facinated with the reflection of light and color in morning or afternoon light on ponds, lakes and streams. At certain angles the colors seem more intense than they are in life. Supported by a background of deep green, to vibrant blue to jet black, these colors are reflected to us much more richly than if we are looking at the same scene in actuality. Watching more tenured artists than myself, I found myself wondering why the masters often started with a dark pallet and added light colors. It seemed ridiculous to me, until I looked closely at the reflected light from my pictures. Try as hard as I might, I could not get the camera to see what I was seeing in the grass, and bark and sky, unless I was looking at them as reflections in the water. Then the colors had depth, multiple hues, clarity, and harmony. They have light.
In both pictures above, the actual trees are overwhelmed by the sunlight. Yet the trees in the reflections defy you not to look at them. They are enhanced by the sunlight. Yet they are less realistic.They have less definition and less detail, but are overwhelmingly the more beautiful. I have learned a valuable art lesson, to realize it is not the details of the picture that makes it worth looking at, but how it uses the light, color and intesity of those things that make it have value as a masterful work. Yet there is one more thing that adds life to art.
It is depth. Dramatically obvious in the picture above, where the trees in the foreground are so tall, and the mountains in the background are so tiny, the mountains are far away. But size alone does not determine this. Both in real life and in pictures, it is color. And so it must be in art. Darker more opaque colors in the foreground, except where the sun dictates its own yellow hues on the color, bring the items closer. Even the blue in the nearer sky is bluer. Lighter, less opaque shades are in the distance. And shades is the correct term, because shades are greyed tones of colors. In addition the hue is a much bluer green rather than the more yellow one of the foreground. So hues have an effect on how the background recedes. The water is it's characteristic greenish color in the foreground, but ceases to be water in the distance. Rather what we see is the reflection on it's mirrored surface of the sky and the distant scenery.
Even when the distance is not miles across the lake and into the mountains the same effect on the greens is obvious - from natural opaque greens sunlit by yellows to softer greens to bluer greens to grayer greens. The red on the cardinal is more opaque than the same color of red on the flowers beyond. The greens in the foreground appear to have dirt for a background as browns peep through, yet the dirt on the distant hill is gray.
And the one defining thing that provides a third dimension in all the pictures is that which provides it's movement. Light. It is light that casts the shadows, gives the trees a third layer, brings reflections into play, breaks the lay of the land into visual distance.
So when painting each of these scenes, I will try to incorporate the correct background color, and use different composites of the overlay colors in each element of the picture. I will use the hues and shades of colors to provide depth to my composition. I will scale the items in the foreground dramatically larger and those, in the depth of the painting, dramatically smaller the further back they are. I will layer the planes in my painting closely upon one another. And I will be very aware of the light and how light defines the space as I paint. I am glad I had this little conversation with myself. Because I have begun to visualize things I already knew, but had difficulty wrapping my brain around.
This is why I love to take pictures of things I will paint.
Most masters prefer "en plein aire", or painting outdoors at the scene. But I am sure my mind would not have captured all this dramatic color and light on paper in the short time that these images remained, before the sun fully rose above the trees. I am sure I would have lost it before I could have painted it.
There is one final thing that I noticed before closing, that most masters leave out of their paintings. I will have to decide if I find it distracting to a painting enough to leave it out. It is the shadows of things not in the painting - things that would be beyond the frame of the scene, which by the way is defined only by the fact that I chose it. A great example of this, is the very first picture above. The Reflection pictures I took that day indicated a lot of trees on the other shore. But including them in the frame of the scene diminished the beauty of the reflections when I compared pictures. In several of those shots however, the shadows of the trees fall across the grass and into the water. Many painters often leave these shadows cast by things beyond the frame of the scene out of their painting. I like the shadows cast across the trees in my picture, as well as the dappled sunlight, that falls from well out side the frame of my picture. I think it adds yet another dimension, and another opportunity to add realism, and contrast and there by add light.
