Large lawns and masses of foliage present unexpected challenges to the painter; Paul Riley reveals how he approaches garden subjects.
'I started my painting career in the garden,' says Paul. 'I would sit with my father and note with bewilderment the plethora of shapes, colours and tones that made up our small suburban plot. I was astonished by how my father could pick from the seemingly random assortment and compose a distillation of what was important to him.
'Some of the lessons he taught me then (I was only 10 years old) have stood me in good stead today. The main trick seemed to be not to try to attempt the whole issue, but to choose one small aspect that would encapsulate the spirit of the whole.'
Tackling lawns
The British love their gardens, this is a tradition that goes back centuries. There is much scope for the painter in the numerous types of garden varying from the formal to the plain haphazard!
I have looked at many ways of painting this subject and have noted various pitfalls that can occur.
The main one seems to be the ubiquitous lawn – that vast expanse of green fringed with tiny plants swamped by even more greenery. Suffice to say that as a subject matter it leaves a lot to be desired.
Firstly, large chunks of green in a composition are pretty much indigestible in most situations, which is why painters such as Constable would work landscapes on a red ground, and why I might use a warm tinted Bockingford for my gardenscapes.
If the lawn is to be featured I like to make sure it has something going for itself such as the wilder versions that are dotted with daisies or studded with bluebells or daffodils.
When tackling a gardenscape where the lawn is an integral part I try to reduce its proportion in the picture to the minimum possible, particularly when it is in the foreground – even then I try to break it up as much as possible with shadows and/or plants.
Plants in the foreground
Plants in the foreground are a useful device as they can act as a visual link from the bottom edge of the picture plane to the centre of interest in the middle zone.
They also give the painter the opportunity to explore plant forms close up and at a scale that will enable the viewer to appreciate the plant types.
Understanding scale
The business of scale is very important. You have only to take an instamatic photo of your garden to appreciate what happens to all those wonderful displays of blooms you worked so hard to achieve.
You will notice they suddenly look insignificant, mere pinpricks of colour bleached out by the depths of shadows surrounding them. If, however, you study professional shots of the same kind of thing you will see that they come much closer to the blooms so that you can appreciate them for what they are.
Scale is also related to perspective. If you have large elements in the foreground such as flower heads or grasses, then something large like a house or person will seem small in the background and a massive sense of space can be achieved. If, however, you keep all the flowers to the same scale, and in the proportion of a screwed-up sweet paper, then the whole result will look very flat indeed.
Foliage – handling the mass
One of the biggest problems confronting the gardenscapist is how to handle the mass of seemingly uncoordinated foliage in beds or in a stand of various tree types.
The difficulty is how to describe the billions of different leaf types. Although the main area of this mass might occur only in the background, it is of sufficient presence to warrant some explanation.
Most plants and trees are highly combative, vying for space and light. They therefore tend to monopolise zones – more so in the wild than in a cultivated situation.
Indeed, good landscape gardeners will exploit this fact and plant accordingly.
Bali Garden, Ubud, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Not 140lb (300gsm) 22½” x 29¾”
The painting above is not your average English garden – note the prayer poles, cockerels, bicycle etc. Balinese gardens are usually dirt ground with beds and individual shrubs. The layout of their courtyards given ample opportunities for the painter to find sheltered views. I used underwashes of raw sienna and permanent rose to indicate the sun-drenched atmosphere.
Identifying foliage zones
I try to identify zones and break them down into their constituent parts.
These parts are decided upon by colour, tone and texture. I delineate the basic silhouette of the whole mass which I then break down into the various zones as I see them – less zones for distant masses, more for the nearer ones.
These zones are then given tonal values, light next to darker. These are then colour evaluated. Finally, the texture is analysed from small dots to flat areas of variegated colour to large dots or strokes.
For large areas of greenery I constantly look for ways of introducing colours other than green, for instance blues and violets for distance, reds and yellows for nearness.
I particularly like to add reds, be they the hints of dead leaves or branches, in order to add those complementary touches to enliven the green.
This zoning method is not entirely new and was in fact exploited extensively by the Nabis painters Vuillard and Bonnard.
Cheating techniques
I think most artists are a dishonest bunch. After all, they constantly adapt their view of things by adding or subtracting elements to make a composition work, and so it is with gardenscapes.
What is important is to get the balance right. If, for example, your chosen view has a huge chunk of not very exciting and unrelieved green foliage right in the central zone of your picture, why not add something? More flowers, perhaps, or a figure to help make the composition.
In fact it helps to have a sketchbook full of such additions to insert on these occasions.
Alternatively, if you are working en plein air you can leave out this section and move yourself to a group of flowers to insert accordingly.
Red Roses, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Not 140lb (300gsm) 22½” x 29¾”
My neighbours are keen gardeners but for Red Roses, above, I chose this derelict end of the garden where the roses had run riot by a disintegrating greenhouse.
The roses were the ragged type so I evolved a system using rolled-up paper mashed into the colour to print the blooms.
A small fine rigger with a rich mix of colour was then used to add detail.
Flowers and figures
Flowerscapes per se can sometimes be a little monotonous if the density of foliage is not relieved in some manner.
Various devices can be used, although some can seem pretty hackneyed, for example the ubiquitous wrought iron table and chairs! Items such as walls, trees close up, buildings or figures can work well.
Figures don’t necessarily need to be seen gardening but could play a major part, in the manner of a portrait, which in the end could set a mood in the painting.
You don’t need to have the two together all the time you can cheat and add the figure either later, or at the beginning.
White Lilies, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Not 140lb (300gsm) 17½” x 22”
This painting was the result of a mere glimpse at a garden centre.
I made a quick thumbnail sketch which I used to build into a painting in the studio.
This is an exercise that can be indulged in during the winter when outside is dull and miserable.
For details of the flowers you can use cut varieties or work from other paintings done in the summer.
Sequencing
Poppies, Chios, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Not 140lb (300gsm) 22½” x 29¾”
I was confronted by an abundance of wild flowers where these unique yellow homed poppies dominated.
In a mass of this kind it is as well to pick one particular flower to act as a focal point and make it as large as possible.
The mass of wild flowers was built up using successive layers of masking fluid which baked onto the paper due to the hot sun!
Careful control of the spot size (of the flowers) determined perspective.
Flower colours
It is imperative that all paintings dealing with primary colours such as those found in flowers should be laid down as cleanly as possible.
It is for this reason that when I am working in watercolour I start with the flower colours first.
I have two suggestions – one is to start with yellows, then reds and then finish up with the blues. The second is to start with the staining colours – Winsor & Newton’s Cotman cadmium yellow (arilyde), permanent rose (quinacridone) and phthalo blue (phthalocyanine). These look clean and fresh and can be modified at a later stage by the more dense or precipitating pigments such as the cadmiums – red and yellow and ultramarine blue.
Another thing I tend to do is paint the flowers rather larger than they seem to be, and also many more of them. This is for two reasons. One is that when adding the foliage you tend to cut down on their size anyway and the other is that there are probably more flowers there than you think.
Subject opportunities
Water Lilies, Tirta Ayu, Bali, watercolour on Saunders Waterford Not 140lb (300gsm) 22½” x 29¾”
The timing of this painting was tight due to the fact that these particular water lilies only opened for a very short time when the sun came on them. To obtain the depth of green which forms the backdrop to this view I used Schmincke’s vermilion green deep. This was complemented by a quinacridone red – Tyrian rose by Lefranc & Bourgeois. The lilies were painted first whilst they were opening, then the loose overwash was added later during cloudbursts – it was during the start of the monsoon!
When contemplating gardenscapes as a potential subject, don’t necessarily confine yourself to your own back garden. There are many other opportunities.
First, your neighbours – this can flatter them and might just possibly result in a sale.
Then there are the numerous public gardens including those of the Royal Horticultural Society at Wisley, Hampshire, Hyde Hall, Essex and Rosemoor at Great Torrington in north Devon.
You will also find details of open gardens at your library. You will need to notify them of your intentions and to site yourself with as little disruption to the public as possible.
Water gardens are an especial delight, culminating with painting in Monet’s garden at Giverny.
Flower painting in the wild has immense potential, especially around springtime and early summer. You can follow the primrose season through to the plethora of hedgerow and woodland flowers such as bluebells, pink campion and foxgloves.
This article was originally published in the June 1999 issue of The Artist. Enjoy endless inspiration with access to past and present issues of both The Artist and Leisure Painter magazines, plus exclusive video demos, tutorials and more, with our Studio Membership! Discover how you can join today.
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