Alice wrote to me seeking advice on how to paint trees: “ One thing I really struggle with is trees. I have no idea whether to do an underpainting or in the construction stage if I should add lines or not. For example, in Monet’s painting, I can’t see an obvious color for an Underpainting.”

Image No.1 (above) is the Monet painting that puzzles Alice. I can see why. The value changes throughout are subtle and the tree doesn’t really separate sharply from what is around it. We don’t know exactly what Monet was looking at, but let us assume that the painting is a faithful representation. Using Photoshop, let me create what I think might have been the stages of the painting.

First, let’s squint so that we can’t focus. Squinting and comparing helps us to see things simply. Also, because the first two stages (Composition and Construction) are line stages, let me remove the color. At this point I’m only interested in value relationships.

Image No. 2 is what I see as I squint. It’s a little blurry and I am able to see how the values relate to one another. I see that the tree is somewhat like a ball. One side is struck by the light; the other side is shady and the transition from light to dark within the tree is gradual, so there is no separation of value, hence no line, within the ball-like tree. I notice, again simplifying, that apart from cast shadows, the ground area is basically one value. There also appears to be a smaller dark bush in the lower left hand corner and a very small tree,that is darker than the ground. The sky too is nearly one value but gradually gets lighter near the horizon.

So I draw lines (in oil, following the Composition in charcoal that was brushed off), not much darker than the white canvas and I place lines only where values separate (refer to image No. 3). Remember I am making this as simple as possible. The light side of the tree seems to separate ever so slightly with what is behind it as does the shady side. But because I see the shady side separate less strongly, my line there is less intense. The bush to the left as well as the tiny tree seem to separate. So does the horizon. I do not construct shadows (or reflections) because they are just air. If I were to construct shadows they would look like a hole in the ground.

Image No. 4 is my photoshop-ed version of an Underpainting. Alice states that she can’t see “an obvious color” for the Underpainting, but recall that an underpainting is many, many layers of color or veils of atmosphere. We use a technique called scumbling and we begin with all the dark values, then we move on to the middle values, and we leave the light values open or that part of the canvas blank.¹

Image No. 5 is my Reconstruction. I purposely use a very dark line because I want to “undo” the Underpainting. I don’t want the dark lines (again, placed where values separate) to belong to the Underpainting. This way, when I return to color in the next stage, the Painting stage, I will be forced to go richer and a little darker in order to bring the painting back into balance.

In imageNo. 6, I have begun the Painting stage. Again using Photoshop, I have simulated brush strokes, placing one stroke at a time against another, building with the color. I have painted the darks, then into the middle values (image no. 7). Notice that I am allowing the Underpainting to show through in places. I try not to “plug it up;” I want to be able to look through the brushstrokes in the Painting stage – to a degree – down into the underpainting.

Image No. 8 is my photoshop-ed version of the final painting. Notice that I saved painting into the “lights” until last. In the Underpainting stage I scumbled into construction lines and, similarly, in the Painting stage, I painted into the lines. One doesn’t have to obliterate construction lines. The bits that remain after painting into them will do the job of signaling a value separation; in other words, the bits of line that remain from the Reconstruction will still help create form.

The photoshop look, as it were, is rather mechanistic; however, I hope that you can see how one moves through a painting. Now Monet advises us repeatedly, “don’t see the object before you.” In other words, don’t see trees or fields or skies as trees, fields, and skies. Don’t be literal. Just see color and where values separate, or line. So the method he used was an oscillation between line and color. The whole thing is an unfolding; it is complete in every stage. There is no point called “finish.” One stops when one has nothing more to say or when one wishes to say nothing more.

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¹Many people think that when I say “lights” that I am referring to “whites” or “highlights.” No. Remember that when we begin and we squint and compare, we also simplify by reducing everything, in our mind’s eye, to three values: darks, middles, and lights. This can be tricky, especially when we are painting outside. Generally, if the light is striking one side of an object, it falls into the “light” category even if it is not one of the lightest values in the painting. It is similar to sorting laundry. If I ask you to sort all your clothes into three piles, one for the darks, one for the middles, and one for the lights, it may be difficult to decide where the light blouse with a light flower pattern goes. But in the end, you must decide. And everything you decided was in the “light” pile, as it were, is left open or blank – only to be painted in the final step of the painting stage when we “paint the lights.”