On the second day

of the workshop,
Ben Fenske
showed students
how to create
studio paintings
from their plein air
sketches.

Photos: Steve Smith

BENFENSKE 6 Basics of Landscape Painting
During visits back to the United States from his home in Italy, Ben Fenske teaches
fundamental concepts and skills that can help landscape painters make progress.

by M. Stephen Doherty
Fenske

LEFT

Fenske painted on a student’s canvas to

demonstrate the key points he wanted
her to understand.

BELOW

The instructor offered individual critiques

of the students’ paintings.

“Practice, practice, practice” may be

the advice given to musicians who
aspire to perform in New York’s photographer Steve
Smith to document the
Carnegie Hall, and it is also good gallery demonstration.
As Fenske began a
advice for landscape painters. presentation to the
assembled students on
the first day of the work-
shop, he explained that
The more one works at composing pictures, mixing colors, he would be discussing six basic concepts that can be applied
building up the surface of a canvas, and looking critically at to almost any landscape-painting situation. “These are simple
one’s paintings, the more likely it is that real progress will ways of thinking about what you observe in nature,” he said.
be made. But what should one be practicing? Certainly not “Some of what I’ll describe has to do with the physics of light,
repeating bad habits. and some of it concerns the way pigments can be used to
If these well-intentioned artists participated in one of Ben record our observations. That is, I will talk about why the land-
Fenske’s workshops, they would leave with the understand- scape appears a certain way and how oil paint can be used to
ing of some basic concepts, sound techniques, and depend- emulate its appearance.” Here are Fenske’s explanations of the
able procedures they could practice. As a young artist, Fenske six concepts he discussed during his workshop.
clearly recalls the advice that helped him develop solid skills
and broad understanding, and now he passes that informa- Concept 1: Form
tion on to people who participate in his workshops or attend Every landscape, figure, and object can be considered as a col-
his regularly scheduled classes. He teaches short-term work- lection of forms made up of planes of space. At the beginning
shops when he returns annually to the United States from of the painting process, it helps to just consider the largest
his home in Italy, and he frequently serves as an adjunct and most dominant of those forms and indicate them on a
instructor at art schools in Europe and the United States. piece of paper or canvas in the simplest way possible. For
Fenske grew up in Minnesota’s Twin Cities and was for- example, a building is made up of squares, rectangles, circles,
tunate to study with Joseph Paquet in Minneapolis. He and triangles, and a figure is composed of cylinders, cones,
later moved to Florence, Italy, and participated in the rigor- and cubes. Even though you will want to paint them as real,
ous academic program offered at The Florence Academy of natural objects, it is their overall form that matters. If you
Art. He now maintains a studio in a historic studio build- keep those forms simple, it is easier to judge their relative
ing on Piazzale Donatello in Florence, where other profes- scale, the distances between them, and the way they align in
sional artists have similarly large work spaces. perspective. And once you have them accurately indicated,
Last summer Fenske was invited to teach a two-day you can start to break them into smaller and smaller forms.
workshop in Sag Harbor, New York, where he is represent-
ed by Grenning Gallery (www.grenninggallery.com). A Concept 2: Light and Shadow
group of local artists joined him on the beach for the first We see objects because of the way they reflect light and cast
day for a painting demonstration and individual critiques, shadows. We know a piece of fur is soft because the pattern
and the same participants convened in the spacious of light over it has soft edges and subtle transitions of
Grenning Gallery on the second day when Fenske offered a value, and we know something is far away because there is
demonstration on how to develop large studio paintings less contrast than there is between the pattern of light and
from plein air sketches. Members of the Workshop maga- shadow in the foreground. And whether we recognize it or
zine staff observed both days of instruction and invited not, light also affects our perceptions of color. A white wall

8 Workshop www.artistdaily.com
 Fenske

BELOW BOTTOM OPPOSITE PAGE

Concept 3: Values
The instructor Lecturing inside The first day of the Although light and shadow are concrete, physical phenom-
offered advice Grenning Gallery, the workshop was held on ena, value is completely relative. Something can be
to one of the instructor pointed to his the beach in Sag
students in the own paintings to make Harbor, New York. described as having a light or dark value in relationship to
workshop. significant points. everything around it. I recommended that students in the
workshop observe the subject they intended to paint before
they even lifted a brush. I wanted them to ask themselves
what were the lightest and darkest shapes and to then
determine how everything else fit into that order. Because
things change all the time in nature, I suggested that peo-
ple take a few minutes to mark their observations on the
canvas by indicating the specific pattern of light, middle, I recommended that students
and dark values. They wouldn’t necessarily have to stay
with that over the course of the next two or three hours, but in the workshop observe the
at least they would have a logical starting point for their
paintings. Even if they decided to change things around,
subject they intended to paint
they would have a reference point. before they even lifted a brush.

looks gray in low light, and green leaves look yellow

when they are under direct sunlight.
It makes sense to think of painting both as a process
of recording the range of values established by the
amounts of light that the surfaces reflect and also as a
system of using the light to direct the viewer’s attention
within the confines of the picture. During the work-
shop, I talked to the students about analyzing the pat-
tern of light and shadow at the very beginning of the
painting process so that they would immediately begin
to think about compositing the picture, separating the
forms, and directing the viewer’s attention by control-
ling that pattern.

10 Workshop www.artistdaily.com
 Fenske

OPPOSITE PAGE RIGHT

Fenske offered a The instructor worked

basic demonstration on a large canvas
of the six important outdoors to show
Atmospheric perspective is concepts of
landscape painting.
students how he paints
a coastal landscape.
a term that identifies the fact
that colors shift as they go back
in space, eventually taking on a Concept 5: Skies
Just as the color mixtures and values change on the ground,
decidedly violet hue. the same thing happens in the sky. I drew an arc over my
demonstration painting to suggest a dome of sky over the
field, and I identified the obvious fact that the area at the top
of the sky was darker because it was directly over our heads,
and the line where the sky met the land formations was the
During my first demonstration, I broke up the landscape into six masses farthest away. Then I mentioned the fact that, in general, the
and ordered those from the lightest to the darkest, and I wrote the list of sky will progress in four distinct zones, with the smallest
those masses on the left side of the panel. While I was painting, I made being a band of violet just above the horizon. The next zone
sure that all the values fit into that hierarchy of values as they were listed above the horizon is a light band of greenish blue, progress-
on the panel. N0. 1 had to be lighter than No. 2, No. 2 had to be lighter ing up to a light tint of cobalt, and finally to an ultramarine
than No. 3, and so forth. blue. Of course the mixtures of colors and widths of the
bands depend on the time of day, atmosphere, weather, and
Concept 4: Atmosphere presence of clouds, but as with any other standard measure,
FAR RIGHT
Atmospheric perspective is a term that identifies the fact that colors shift
Fenske worked on a large canvas
outdoors to show students how he as they go back in space, eventually taking on a decidedly violet hue. The
paints a coastal landscape. exact degree and hue vary depending on the amount of moisture in the air
BELOW and the distance between the painter and the landscape elements, but
Fenske offered a basic there are some general concepts one can consider when evaluating those
demonstration of the six important
concepts of landscape painting. particular conditions. I demonstrated the basic principles by mixing a
starting-point green with half cadmium yellow light and half ultramarine
blue, and I used that to paint the tree closest to me. Then I added a small
amount of cadmium orange and titanium white to the starting-point green
to paint the trees just behind the foreground shape, added some cadmium
red and more titanium white to the mixture to paint the shape behind
that, and painted the most distant trees with a mixture that included more
white and violet. That sequence created the illusion of things going back
in space with the cooling of colors and the lightening of the values.

12 Workshop www.artistdaily.com
Fenske

Demonstration: September Day STEP 4

Fenske finished his
demonstration by
enriching the painting with
a broad range of colors
applied with quick
gestures of a bristle
brush.

BELOW
1 2
September Day
2009, oil, 22 x 35.
STEP 1
The painting Fenske
During his two-day copied while doing his
4
workshop, Fenske demonstration.
demonstrated how he
uses small plein air
paintings to develop
larger studio works. In
this first stage of the
demonstration, he
drew the outlines of
the major shapes with
a thin mixture of oil
color.

STEP 2
Using an impressionist
technique of applying
strokes of broken color
on the canvas, the
artist established the
dark and middle values
in the landscape.

STEP 3
3 Paying attention to the
divisions of space in
the land and sky,
Fenske continued to
develop the entire
canvas.

14 Workshop www.artistdaily.com www.artistdaily.com Winter 2009 15

 Fenske

On the left side of Fenske’s

demonstration he listed the
seven basic spatial divisions in
his landscape painting.

Formulas, rules,
and concepts
should never be a
substitute for keen
observation, but
they can serve as
measures against
which to evaluate
what one sees
in nature.
this one can help artists judge how can buy, such as permanent green color; a violet green by adding more
the sky on a particular day differs light, viridian, phthalocyanine green, ultramarine blue; or a more subtle
from the standard relationship. and green umber, and there are any green by adding cobalt blue. Once he
number of ways to combine yellows, worked with those to establish the big
Concept 6: Greens blues, and blacks to make greens. shapes in his landscape paintings, he
The color that most people have Joe Paquet recommended that his would adjust the base color again by
trouble with in landscape painting is students start with a basic green made adding an orange red, alizarin crimson,
green—the hue that dominates most from half ultramarine blue and half or more cadmium yellow light. As he
scenes and separates an evergreen cadmium yellow light and then modi- worked with the greens, he reduced the
from a maple tree; a mowed lawn fy that to create warmer, cooler, intensity of the mixtures to suggest
from an open pasture; or a shaded lighter, or darker greens. For example, forms farther back in space.
palm leaf from a sunlit petal. There he suggested making a yellow green
are a number of tube greens one by adding manganese blue to the base How to Apply These
Concepts
Formulas, rules, and concepts should
never be a substitute for keen observa-
tion, but they can serve as measures
against which to evaluate what one
About the Artist sees in nature. What I’ve offered here
is a general way of analyzing what one
Ben Fenske grew up in Minnesota and studied there with Joseph Paquet
sees. The challenge and the joy of
(www.joepaquet.com) and at the Bougie Studio. He then moved to Italy to
landscape painting is to respond with
study at The Florence Academy of Art and continues to maintain a studio in
skill and understanding to the unique
Florence. He frequently travels back to the United States to teach work-
conditions that exist at the moment
shops and exhibit at Grenning Gallery, in Sag Harbor, New York. His work
you begin painting. ■
has also been included in exhibitions at Ann Long Fine Art, in Charleston,
South Carolina; Eleanor Ettinger Gallery, in New York City; and Solomon M. Stephen Doherty is the editor-in-chief of
Gallery, in Dublin, Ireland. Workshop.

16 Workshop www.artistdaily.com Winter 2009 17

Fenske

LEFT

Nude
Fenske’s Work 2008, oil, 44 x 36.

BELOW, FROM TOP TO BOTTOM

LEFT BELOW
Guitar
Cloud Shadow 2009, oil, 8 x 12. Private collection.
Self-Portrait With White
Ground 2009, oil, 12 x 20.
Nude Sketch
2008, oil, 24 x 18. All artwork this
BOTTOM 2009, oil, 8 x 12. Private collection.
article courtesy Grenning Gallery, Sag
Harbor, New York, unless otherwise Road
indicated. Cary in the Kitchen
2009, oil, 40 x 59.
2008, oil, 30 x 24. Private collection.

18 Workshop www.artistdaily.com www.artistdaily.com Winter 2009 19