The “Unseen Air”

The 4th tenant of Tonalism is the “depiction of atmosphere”. According to Cleveland’s History of American Tonalism, “The Tonalist’s use of a predominant tonality had the collateral effect of creating a pronounced atmospheric quality in which the very air that infuses the landscape has a palpable density and optical resonance.” Seeing the air? Yes. Like on a foggy morning, or the sunbeams through the clouds on a rainy day, or the distance over water. I honestly think that watercolor is one of the best mediums for expressing this “unseen air”. I, however foolishly, consider this to be something I can accomplish fairly easily. And I have chosen to use William Anderson Coffin’s Sunset Tones, ca. 1890 as my study.

Here is Coffin’s original work. The sunset here is breath-taking. The orange glow being reflected in the pond feature below. The distant hills blurred so you can imagine the smoke from fireplaces settling down in the valleys.

My first challenge is literally getting an image in front of me that I can clearly see and use as a reference. I like to have a paper copy to work off. It makes it easier to match colors. Unfortunately, my new printer and I have not figured out a happy spot yet and it continues to print much darker than my computer or Ipad. So, I bring up both. (One day when I am feeling REALLY patient I will sit down with my printer and figure things out.)

As you can see, I have here my sketch done lightly, a bit of masking fluid in the foreground to add the bright flowers in at the end, and I have painted the beginning of my sunset. What a monumental mess. Entirely too dark and too bright. This is the point where sometimes, you just want to throw the whole thing away and start again. But, I choose to carry on. It might be salvageable with some lifting and some lavender. Coffin’s painting’s sky is so very detailed and in trying to recreate that I missed the mark. I should have probably chosen to make 2 large areas of clouds that were blocks of color. Regardless, we keep moving.

As I add the layers of blues and greens, it’s a constant slight variation of color and tone, some blending together, some hard edges. All of this is why I think that watercolor is a perfect medium for showing that “unseen air”! I’m not using one green or one blue here, but basically just something different mixed up for each layer.

Now that I have a layer over everything down in my first layer. Most of our edges between things are soft, but there are some hard edges we need to soften and some hard edges we need to add. With everything else in, the sky doesn’t look horrible. Maybe it is salvageable after all. I add some texture to the foreground, some red roofs and windows, some wee little cows, some poppies and hit the sky up with the a bit of cerulean and lavender to kick back the color and break it up.

Here is my final work. Is it my favorite painting ever, no. What did I learn? Well, as usual, when painting in watercolor, more isn’t always better. If I had been out painting with Coffin this day, I might have simplified it quite a bit. But the layers on layers of land and trees with the hills in the background do bring an atmosphere to the painting. It was a good learning day! Go paint and be happy!