Painting with Paul Cézanne

“We live in a rainbow of chaos” Paul Cézanne

Cézanne was a major force paralleling mainstream Impressionism. Always somewhat apart, he innovated and brought fresh ways of seeing to us all: both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne “is the father of us all.”. Cézanne sought to sense something fundamental about all subjects and through his investigations of still life, figures and landscapes, gave life to modernism and changed the world of art forever. I still scratch my head somewhat when I look at a Cézanne. Normally there are some other significant painters with something of the same style. But not Cézanne, he just saw things differently and now, so do we.

Then there is his description of his painting process…a description that rings as true to my heart as any :

“If I reach too high or too low, everything is a mess. There must not be a single loose strand, a single gap through which the tension, the light, the truth can escape. I have all parts of my canvas under control simultaneously. If things are tending to diverge, I use my instincts and my beliefs to bring them back together again….I take the tones of colour I see to my right and my left, here, there everywhere and I fix these gradations. I bring them together…. They form lines, and become objects, rocks, trees, without my thinking about it. They acquire volume, they have an effect. When these masses and weights on my canvas correspond to the planes, and spots which I see in my mind and which we see with our eyes, then the canvas closes it’s fingers.”

 

Reinforcing Lights and Darks

An often neglected “stage” in a painting is restating lights and darks. Paintings often start well, particularly when they are following a value study: clear, maybe even monochrome darks contrast with lights. Forms are blocked and connected, colour and context added. Details and adjustments made. Then suddenly, it’s gone all muddy! Or perhaps it nearly almost works but looks lifeless. What once looked really dark, or light, looks less so now, essentially because there is so much more going on. It’s about contrast or relative value. It doesn’t matter a whit how dark or light something is, if it blends into the surrounding area.

The solution is of course, quite simple: make the darkest dark even darker and the lightest lights lighter. This is often termed “restating”. Two things are going on here: when initially applied, what looks very dark is often not as dark as you think…because of the stark surrounding – and now the opposite is true, given it’s been surrounded by mid-tone paint.

I’m sometimes asked what’s more important, the lights or the darks? Well, I think TV’s Bob Ross got it right when he said: “you have to have the dark in order to show the light.” A dab of pure dark here and there, I’d say a cool blue-black.

 

Finishing glazes

With both oil and acrylic,  once your painting is finished, you might well notice some differences in surface texture – between areas where you’ve worked the surface and perhaps areas where your initial application persists. In this video, I comment on evening up the surface finish with the application of a transparent glaze or varnish:

Glazing and varnishing

Traditionally, glazing and varnishing were separate and distinct processes, glazing being part of the paint surface and varnishing a separate and removable layer – not part of the painting itself. With acrylics, the terms have become interchangeable as a final finishing process using acrylic mediums.

Here are a few potential reasons to consider glazing or varnishing:

1. To even up the finish, bring the surface together, integrate and harmonize – and this can be accomplished with your choice of a matte or gloss surface finish.
2. To adjust the colour by adding a tint into the glaze: over the complete painting or just over a specific area, perhaps just altering the prominence, settling an area back into the canvas (cool) or bringing out a feature (warm).
3. To protect and seal – by adding paint, you are separating the form from the surface with a sealant (probably less critical these days).

The following video reviews the general process:

 

Glazing can also be useful to lightly modify the colour or value in a specific area. In the following video I change a flower in a still life composition in oil.  In acrylic, I would take a very similar approach, using a slow drying medium, or adding some retarder to my mix.

 

Further exploring your world of painting

I’m a great believer in trying new things – exploring different approaches and materials feeds creativity. That’s the fun of art, always a journey of discovery. Here are a few ideas for your studio:

Oil and Acrylic on paper

Both oil and acrylic paints work superbly on paper. It’s best to use a robust thick paper in order to reduce buckling. I personally prefer to use watercolour paper. The great thing with watercolour paper is that, thinned with water/solvent, the paint behaves in a quite similar manner to watercolour and dowsing wet colours one into another – wet on wet – works well. When dry, the paint is of course fixed (unlike watercolour), so as the paint builds up, the paint then behaves more like a gessoed surface – essentially because the surface is now sealed by the dry paint.

Oil and Acrylic in conjunction with other materials

Likewise, oil and acrylic generally work well in conjunction with a wide range of other art materials. The main constraint is the old adage: “oil and water don’t mix”. You can certainly use acrylics under oil – but not vice-versa. Acrylics are easy to use in conjunction with most dry media. Maybe not oil pastels of course, however in this case, oils work well.

Modelling pastes and gels

These are typically acrylic-based and can be used under both oil and acrylic. They can also be used combined with acrylic paint. The only real constraint is that for large topographical build-ups it’s best to have a rigid support (board rather than stretched canvas). Work in layers, letting each layer dry before applying the next.

Special effect paints

By now you may have noticed ranges of metallic, iridescent, pearl and other light bending effects. These can be used to electrifying results – however perhaps sometimes over-used. There are few technical limitations with these products, however as with most special effects there needs to be a context and purpose to the application – oftentimes less is more. Speaking of sparkling effects, dry glitter can of course be added to paint, sprinkled onto the wet paint surface or mixed with a clear acrylic medium – effectively making your own glitter-paint!

Non-brush techniques

Wiping, spattering, sponging, scraping, spaying and using cling film not to mention a palette knife, all work well with oil, acrylic and watercolour. It’s difficult to find a technique that has not been tried to good effect and a little research on the Internet will yield a lot of information.

Re-using canvas

I consistently re-use my old acrylic canvases. Re-preparation is a breeze as the new acrylic paint will readily bond with the old. Firstly, I make sure that the surface is clean. Then, with a mid-value tone, somewhat similar to the predominant tone of the old painting, plus a good dollop of titanium white for covering power, on goes my new base, with a fairly large, dryish brush. Aim to break up old lines, crossing them at angles as well as evening out tonal variations. Rather than aim for a completely even tone, I prefer to start my new painting with some vestiges of the old:  The juxtaposition with ghosts of images past seems to resonate with mysterious energy!

Exercises

1. Review some of your recent paintings and look for opportunities to reinforce lights and darks.
2. This week choose a new reference, or perhaps get a start to the season with some plein-air painting. Draw and paint in the style of your choice. Whether it’s realistic or abstract,  impasto or glazed, I look forward to seeing the results.