Misbehaving Moons

It's a pet peeve of mine: I'm scrolling through Instagram images of landscape paintings and I see that an artist has decided to stick the moon in their painting. Only they do not understand the basic rules about where the moon realistically appears in the sky. Full moons, new moons, moons everywhere!

I was once guilty of this because I didn't know any better. My father gently pointed out to me that the new moon never appears opposite the sun: only above the setting sun.

I also frequently see artists stick a full moon in the same part of the sky as the sun. In reality, the full moon, when low near the horizon, is always opposite the sun. In the examples above, notice that the sun, not pictured, is behind the viewer, shining onto the cloud and rising full moon.

To inject a bit of humor here, I must admit that when it comes to art, anything goes. In my experience, many art-buying customers don't know whether the full moon you've painted is the moon or the sun! But if you wish your otherwise realistic landscape painting to read right, please take a moment to learn a little bit about your moons.

built a new studio!

On January 1st, I moved in to my brand new studio. My husband designed an addition off our kitchen onto what was a section of the deck. It features high ceilings, with more upper windows yet to come, and a below-the-floor storage room with a trap door and stairway down.

Here are some photos of various areas, and for any artists reading this, I’ve shared a few tips about my setup. I’ll also mention any products I’d like to recommend if you’re interested in finding them (no, I’m not being paid).

So, welcome to my studio….

art studio of Rani Garner, Marion County Georgia USA

my Tueller wall easel, great for large works. The two masts slide on the horizontal rails to adjust.

I get paint all over walls, floors and windows so have tried to protect them

This is a rolling taboret with lots of drawers. I don’t like the idea of having to hang up paint tubes in an exact location on the wall, even though it looks pretty in other artists’ studios…I just want to find it fast, squeeze out what I need and throw it back in the drawer! The brands of oil paint I use are mostly Gamblin, some Windsor Newton, and Permailba white for mixing. I love Rosemary Brushes in short brights of all sizes. I use recycled yogurt cups for small amounts of medium. I bought the cans of paint by mistake—I don’t recommend! Messy and a lot of it dried up.

This is my other work easel (I keep lots of paintings going simultaneously). The room divider acts as a paint spatter shield. I would rather have a larger work surface for palette and brushes, but the beauty of this setup is that the palette on the taboret is still on the correct side for a right-handed person. I once saw an artist who used a lazy susan revolving palette, and that’s what I need here!

A cozy corner for sunrise coffee, book breaks, and kitty visits. There is still plastic on the outside of the windows because of continuing exterior painting.

This might not interest most people, but here is where I store framing hardware, tools and solvents. The middle section has doors that close. My speakers for streaming Spotify are on the top.

Tips on Generating a Stronger Subject from Photo References

Where do painting ideas come from? Read on and I will describe how the subject for a new painting typically evolves.

Artists will tell you the painting starts way before you touch paint to canvas. It really begins by looking and really seeing what has struck them with the inspiration to paint. An experienced artist has a well-developed eye for not just looking, but seeing and analyzing what it is they like about their subjects. I know what inspires me—light—and I collect my subjects in a variety of ways. Usually it's when I go on what I call light safaris with my camera in early morning or evening walks. When I'm delivering paintings to an out-of-town gallery, I plan ahead so I can be in my favorite locations based on the time of day and where I am likely to get good light for my photos. I LOVE getting to do this, as I experience something like spiritual ecstasy when I'm fortunate enough to be a witness to God's glorious light, beautifully revealed in nature.

Once I'm home with a camera full, I will go through the images and make notes of the ones with good elements. Some are good enough to develop into paintings as is, but most will get scrutinized over time, cropped, and added to. I like to print my own photos at this stage. Then comes a gestation period where I will look at them in combination with other photos, and often inspiration strikes as I envision combining elements of several of my photos to make a stronger subject. Typically, I will put a different sky above a body of water if it was really just empty sky or to suit the composition. One has to be careful to match the lighting though.

To illustrate this method of arriving at a subject for a new painting, here is the one I'm currently working on. The first step was knowing that a customer had bought a large painting without its frame, and the gallery now has a 48x36 empty frame I wanted to fill. The following photos show:

1. My initial inspiration for a new painting. I chose this because the shapes and lines in the water flow appeal to my sense of composition. I finally decided I didn’t really like the shape of the sky or its colors for such a large painting and wanted something with more of a balance of warm and cool colors.

2. After searching through my reference photos both printed and saved to discs, I chose this sky. This type of backlit cloud goes straight to my soul with its strong contrast, and I especially liked the sweeping shape of the patterns.

3. On Photoshop Elements, which I’ve taught myself to use over the years, though not elegantly, I cropped just the sky and removed the distracting building silhouettes.

4. I pasted the new sky into my seascape photo, tweaking and resizing/cropping to the same proportions as a 48x36 canvas. This is my working photo, though I wound up moving the horizon and changing the colors as I painted.

5. The finished painting

I hope you find this helpful and interesting. Feel free to comment!