JOHN HUGHES
Warming the Colors of a Landscape
www.pleinairmagazine.com / August-September 2014
Utah artist John Hughes paints on reddish-toned panels, or intentionally shifts paint mixtures sowarm colors dominate. Those procedures, plus strong compositions and careful suggestions of detail,make his plein air pieces more engaging for viewers. The materials and techniques John Hughes uses to create his impressive landscapes may vary from one paintingto the next and one year to the next. They may also be quite different from the ones he uses when working on larger canvases in his studio. But no matter how often he might shift from being a “wild child painter,” as he calls himself when he’s doing quick studies, to an artist who labors over the details in an oil painting, he always arrives at a point at which he celebrates nature in ways that attract the attention of collectors, students, and fellow artists. There is much about Hughes’ creative process that results from his innate talent and excellent drawing skills, but there are also aspects of that process that can be shared with painters aiming to make better connections with a viewing public. Chief among them are those that allow warm colors to become more important to a painting than cool ones. While painters don’t want to follow trends in interior design or fashion, there is something to be learned from experts in those fields who consider the impact of color on the sale of a home, the success of a job interview, a patient’s health, the productivity of workers, and the perceived temperature in a room. In all those situations, warmer colors will have a more positive impact than cooler ones. Amy Morin, a writer for Forbes.com, made the point about preferences for warm colors in an article she wrote after interviewing Sally Augustin, Ph.D., to find out more about color psychology. Augustin, an environmental psychologist and internationally recognized expert on person-centered design, pointed out that response to color is influenced by a person’s cultural background, associations with past experiences, and the environment in which the color appears. Nevertheless, warm colors and warm shades of colors are generally considered more stimulating and attractive. The value of this kind of information for painters is that it may increase their awareness of the power they have to influence people’s response to the visual world. An artist can shift color mixtures in one direction or another to convey a particular idea or feeling about a location, and observers may not even be able to say exactly why they respond enthusiastically to the artist’s work. “I often start a landscape painting by applying a thin wash of a warm, reddish color across the entire surface of a canvas,” Hughes explains. That color is made from a combination of transparent oxide red, a touch of ultramarine blue, and a small amount of quinacridone rose. While the oil color is still wet, I use a bristle brush or cloth dampened with odorless mineral spirits to wipe off selective areas of paint to introduce the lighter-valued shapes in the composition. Additionally, I place a few dark accents in order to set up a value balance. After those simple steps, I have an indication of how the drawing and composition of values might evolve. If I’m not satisfied, I can easily wipe out or wash more reddish color over the surface and adjust the placement of the three main values.” Once Hughes is finished establishing what he calls a “monochromatic block-in,” he begins adding local colors on top of the still-wet underpainting. !at tone influences any color applied over it, either by mixing with the new layer of oil or by peeking through gestured brush marks or thinly painted peripheral areas of the picture.
Hughes often makes a statement to his students that sums up his philosophy about balancing the abstract and representational
aspects of painting: “In painting, the literal gives meaning to the abstract, but the abstract gives beauty to the literal. When combined, the two transcend what could be accomplished alone.” The artist covers similar aspects of his
philosophy in his blog. For example, several years ago he wrote about the importance of establishing a mood in a painting and not focusing on precise details: The task of painting in a painterly way is a very different concept from what most people think. For one thing, it is less about ‘things’being painted, and more about the way light affects these ‘things.’ That is why a typical architectural rendering, though usually correct in detail and scale, is seldom on the level of fine art. Also, painting light effects is just as concerned with how much to leave out of a painting as it is with how much to put in. If you can paint a scene correctly with regard to how light is affecting the various forms in the painting, the details will take care of themselves. Focusing only on details and being concerned about ‘things’ may leave an artist with a painting that is essentially a list of parts (assembly required) and it will obscure the real job of the painter.” Hughes doesn’t always go through these steps of applying and lifting paint when he is working outdoors because time is limited by the shifting light and weather patterns. Sometimes he prefers a more direct approach and goes right into the color from the start. However, the idea of starting with an overall reddish warm tone on his painting surface gets him into the habit of pushing colors towards a balance in favor of warm over cool temperatures. Hughes adds either Liquin or Galkyd medium to his oils to speed up the drying time, and he works primarily with bristle brushes and one or two soft-hair detail brushes. He often applies retouch varnish to dry paintings in progress to even out the surface gloss and bring back the sunken darks, or he will oil out a dry painting surface with a diluted Galkyd formula when he wants to continue working on a painting with wet-in-wet brush work. The sizes of plein air paintings range from 6 x 8 inchesup to 24 x 30. He uses an Open Box M, French, or Anderson easel depending on the size of panel on which he will be painting.
ARTIST DATA
NAME: John Hughes
BIRTHDATE: 1949
LOCATION: Taylorsville, UT
INFLUENCES: “John Singer Sargent,
Sorolla, John F. Carlson, Edgar Payne,
Hanson Puthuff, the Ash Can School, as
well as many other living and deceased
artists.”
WEBSITE: www.johnhughesstudio.com
