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PAINTING GARDENS
(This article is presented as one long page, as an aid to printing.)
In this article, I will refer mostly to painting with pastels, since I work primarily in pastels, but all the principles apply to any painting medium.
Pastels, however, are particularly good for painting gardens and flowers, since the colours are rich and vibrant, and the textured surface of a piece of pastel paper, when covered with pastel particles, will reflect light to give added depth and sparkle. Also, because pastels are opaque, it is possible to paint light colours over dark ones, which is very useful when trying to capture the complexity of a mass of foliage. Best of all pastels are a dry medium, so it is possible to work from start to finish without interruption - a great advantage when painting flowers and gardens, since a flower's life is quite short and capturing the light in a garden is best done with some sense of urgency!
WORKING OUT OF DOORS
If you usually work inside, you will encounter new challenges working out of doors - sun, wind, changing light conditions and even wildlife! You may find that you will have to "speed up", which may mean changing your usual approach to painting. Be prepared for some rather exciting results as a result, and keep an open mind about the work. Try to assess it later rather than as you go along - you may surprise yourself by producing fresh, new images that you hadn't envisaged.
CHOOSING A SUBJECT
We often become rather familiar with our own gardens, seeing mostly the weeds which need clearing and a lawn which needs cutting! You need to develop an "artists eye" in order to rediscover your garden. Overgrown corners may offer fascinating shapes to paint at certain times of day, particularly when the sunlight creates strong shadows and contrasts. It can be just as rewarding to tackle a tiny corner, as it is to paint a large, busy, flower-filled scene. You do not need to paint the neatest or prettiest of subjects in order to produce a good picture. Scruffy corners, broken flowerpots, rusty gates, weatherbeaten fences can provide wonderful shapes and colours.
SEE AND THINK AS A PAINTER
"Shapes and colours" is the key - try not to think "pretty flowers" or "sunlit steps" - rather, try to think in painterly terms. Ask yourself these questions:
Why do I think this area of the garden would make a good subject?
Are the shapes interesting? Can I find similar shapes within the view?
Are the colours exciting? Will I have to subdue some colours to make a better picture?
Is there a focal point or area? Can I "lead the eye" to this focal area?
Is there a dramatic interplay of light and dark areas?
TRY OUT POSSIBLE COMPOSITIONS
Look at the subject through a little cardboard viewfinder and see if it feels right within the shape of a rectangle. Then spend 10 minutes or so on a few thumbnail sketches to explore possible alternative compositions, using the side of the pencil to scribble-in the main areas of tone to see if the balance of tones in the image "work" well. Trust your instincts, but also remember that symmetrical balance seldom works well in painting. For instance, 50% dark, and 50% light areas will have less impact than 75% dark and 25% light areas. Just think about this for a moment - create a scene in your mind's eye. Can you see how a picture which is mostly darkish, with a wonderful, small shaft of light occupying only a small area, will be really dramatic and strong? And if you reverse this idea - a mostly light scene, with a small area of dark, will have an airy, sunlit feel to it?
Then look at "shapes" - can you find echoing curves? (The sweep of a curving path echoed by the shapes of bushes?) Or are there strong diagonals?It can help to choose one main "geometric" impulse from this list - curves, triangles and diagonals, horizontals, verticals - and deliberately emphasise that main impulse, using just a few of the other shapes for variety. So, for instance, if your garden scene has lots of sweeping curves, include maybe just one or two verticals or horizontals, so that the picture has some places for the eye to rest after enjoying all the curving forms. NOW you are beginning to think like an artist!
This image, called "Bob's Garden", has more dark areas than light, so increasing the sense of mystery and drama. I have used complementary colours throughout the image; warm and cool greens dominate the scene, with green's complementary colour, red, used as small, striking accents. The soft, blue-grey shadows on the ground provide an area of relief from the stronger colours of the flowers and foliage. Small dots and dashes are used to "suggest" foliage, although some of the leaf shapes are more defined, particularly those closest to me. (I was sitting in the flowebed to paint!) There are curving forms in this picture, but they are quite subtle - the bottom curved step, and the curve of the wall behind the terracotta pot, and the curving leaf shapes. However, you mostly notice the diagonal edges of the steps, brought out by the dappled light. These sharp edges contrast strongly with the softness of the foliage, and their lines draw your eye towards the pot and light behind it.
SIMPLIFYING NATURE
This is a very generalised piece of advice, and applies to all mediums. When you glance at a garden, you initially absorb an impression of the scene and its atmosphere; lots of greenery, vibrant colour areas, texture and movement. You feel the warmth of the sun, the dampness of recent rain, and you breathe a mixture of fragrances. However, when you begin to sketch or paint, you begin to observe more carefully, your eyes resting far longer on every tiny detail. For those artists who love detail, this is great - but what if you wanted only to capture that first impression? An impression which, if successfully achieved, may be more visually satisfying than photographic accuracy, particularly in terms of softness, atmosphere, life and spontaneity.
To capture an impression, you need to simplify, and to simplify, you need to relearn how to look. The best way is the age-old trick of looking through half-closed eyes. Details disappear and the scene melts into large, simple areas of shape and colour. Yet how reluctant students are to do this! You must practice. Choose a small corner of a garden, squint like mad, and then try some really loose impressions of our subject. Group areas of foliage into simple large shapes with lots of texture, and simplify leaves and blooms into dots and dashes of colour. You will soon find your own language of marks which will suggest the complexity of nature. Give yourself a time limit, say 20 minutes at most. you may also find it helpful to look at the garden paintings of the Impressionists, to see how areas of flowers are simplified into banks and drifts of colour, shapes only suggested but still faintly recognisable.
CHOOSING A COLOUR THEME
A riotous border of multicoloured flowers may be lovely to look at, but oh so difficult to compose. The finished result is likely to look quite chaotic and psychedelic! Try to view the scene with a discerning eye and plan the picture by deciding on a colour theme, using either "colour harmony" or "colour complementaries" (if you don't know what I am talking about, refer to a good book on colour!). Then, play down, or even leave out, colours which don't fit the scheme. You are an artist, not a camera, so you can edit the scene!
Can you see how the vetical rectangle of the door echoes the rectangular, portrait format I chose for this image? Even the vertical forms of the Hollyhocks echo this primary geometric shape idea, as does thelittle broken panel on the door. The slanting diagonal shadows give me a secondary geometric shape. The colour scheme is simple, the tonal balance is "more dark than light", and the direction of the light is clearly apparent, particularly in the carefully-observed light on the flower faces, and the shadows on the ground and background. You notice the flowers before the doorway, because they are painted "light against dark".
I did feel, however, that the long, slanting, thin shadow on the doorway was too intrustive, and I removed it eventually. That is the danger of painting too literally "what is there" !
These are just a few tips and hints. There is much to discover in garden painting; how to soften edges in places so that the flowers don't look like cardboard cutouts, and shapes and areas merge; how to select colours to echo the seasons; contrasting cool and warm areas; capturing light in the garden. This last is quite important - for sunlit scenes, remember you cannot paint in the same spot all day. The sun will move around, and the shadows will change dramatically. If you are lucky enough to live in a climate where the weather is stable, tackle a "morning" picture and an "afternoon" picture, returning to the same scene the next day at the same time, if you do not finish it on day one.
Hopefully I will have stimulated your enthusiasm a little, since there can be few greater pleasures in life for artists than the satisfaction of managing to capture, for ever, a little of the beauty to be found in a glorious garden.
