How Do You Paint Things That Move?
September Clouds, Study
Oil on Linen Panel
5 x 7″
$165 | Available
Do you ever wonder how painters paint things that move?
Do they just paint from photos?
Sometimes.
But not with at least having studied the real thing live from observation first.
How do you do that?
There are several ways to paint something that is never the same twice for more than a second.
One way is to first watch and study without doing anything and then attempt something from memory. In landscape or plein air painting especially, building a visual memory is essential, you must use it constantly to complete any painting outdoors since the light and shadows (and clouds!) are changing constantly.
Another way to capture something that moves is to continually sketch or paint even while the thing is moving. Just by constant back and forth you will get some kind of moving image, but gather knowledge and fill the gaps between observation and doing in the meantime.
one of many quick watercolor studies of clouds in an attempt to understand how to capture those fast-moving puff balls
One of the best ways to learn how to paint moving things without having to reinvent the wheel is to study a master that has come before you and has done it so well that it seems like magic! Copying masters of the past teaches a painter about technique, approach and also what you have previously missed in your own observations.
Today’s painting was from a composite, meaning as soon as I saw these clouds I sketched in the outline of how they were arranged and made some quick dots of color where it was most important like the red undersides, the white highlights at the tops and the gradating blue sky.
More failed cloud studies!
But before I did the oil sketch, I went out with my watercolors and literally filled up page after page of sketches that I trashed.
Was it time wasted?
No way!
Every mark and all time spent trying, failing, observing, studying, thinking and quitting is all valuable.
This is probably one of the most difficult things of being a plein air painter and also the most important to study and to keep building on all the time until one can draw from years of stored memories of observation.