{"id":175,"date":"2026-04-04T19:29:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T19:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/?p=175"},"modified":"2026-04-04T19:29:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T19:29:03","slug":"riff-on-francis-murphy-full-live-painting-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/?p=175","title":{"rendered":"Riff on Francis Murphy: Full Live Painting Session!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Making of : Riff on Francis Murphy - LIVE !\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UWDFnGMvM58?feature=oembed&#038;wmode=opaque\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Join me as I create a tonalist riff inspired by Francis Murphy&#8217;s &#8220;Evening&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Substack studio pass area, I put up a study from 2021, a painting called &#8220;Evening&#8221; by Francis Murphy. It got me thinking, I really like that old painting. I&#8217;d like to do a riff on it. This was a faithful study back then. Today&#8217;s going to be a riff. I love the colors. I love so much about the painting itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Board<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This board&#8217;s been prepped since that time, practically a painting itself. You could just paint on it like this. I don&#8217;t paint on this dark color anymore, but I did for a while. That&#8217;s all on the channel from 2018, 19. Mostly texture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This board&#8217;s been with me a long time. It&#8217;s been through a lot. You can see the preparation on it. Back then I was doing texture and then oil prep. I got away from painting on this dark partly because it doesn&#8217;t photograph very well. I have the tech now, so I can adjust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1005\" src=\"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-1024x1005.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-182\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-1024x1005.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-300x294.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-768x754.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-1536x1508.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-2048x2010.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Riff-on-Murphy-Evening-4-3-2026-80x80.jpg 80w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Getting Started: Drawing and Brushes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I don&#8217;t need a grid. I have one, but I don&#8217;t need it. I&#8217;m doing my own imagining. I&#8217;ve been doing a lot of studies, which you don&#8217;t usually see on the channel. The drawing&#8217;s straightforward. I&#8217;ve got to make some adjustments as I go, but that&#8217;s the work. Drawing&#8217;s done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want a tiny brush with a bit more control. For a smaller painting like this, you need to account for the brush&#8217;s character. Too loose and you lose what you&#8217;re after. I&#8217;m going for the foliage brush, a long filbert. A little more broken in is what I need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Sky<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This is pure tonalism. This is Murphy. This is the heart of Tonalism. Him and the nest were the two most pure tonalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you paint on a dark board, you better make sure your colors have enough presence. Murphy glazed a lot, which you can see in the aqua tones in the sky. That&#8217;s always a giveaway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s some texture on this board, and when you&#8217;ve got texture, you have to change your brush approach. You&#8217;ve got to bear down to get the paint into the nooks. You&#8217;ve got to be more strategic about your oil. Sometimes you&#8217;ve got to use a lot more oil to get the paint into the nooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want some more presence there. Cadmium&#8217;s always present when you&#8217;re working with this kind of palette. It&#8217;s a bit too bright for that area, so I wipe some away because I don&#8217;t want to fight it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was a mistake. I was thinking, &#8220;I&#8217;m never going to get this red enough.&#8221; I went for the cadmium instead of the cadmium red hue, which meant I didn&#8217;t get the intensity I wanted there. I don&#8217;t want that to go that bluey gray. I want that more red in there. Get some intensity there. It carries through, which is cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Building the Composition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m working the foliage and the darks now. The question is whether we need to put any more darks in here. It&#8217;s very dark already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I put too much red in that. I really like that more crayony color, but I&#8217;m going to have to bring in more white. See what I mean? I over-reddened it. I kind of like that gray out there. I could have done that with a raw umber or a tone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Purple gives the smart payoff. We don&#8217;t think we need to bring in that red. We bring it in red. But you wanted to establish some of that, have the impact I thought it was going to. Probably a little white swipe would have been better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is all this? I&#8217;m not liking it. All that white there, I don&#8217;t want that. That is not the color I want. That is not the color at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s closer. There we go. This is pine, by the way. Now we&#8217;re going to brown it out. It&#8217;s too light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s that flattish brown. It&#8217;s very umber-y. When I use these long filberts, I tend to rarely put a lot of emphasis on the side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I did warn you this is a riff. These are some very skyholes, I believe. But they don&#8217;t come off as skyholes. That&#8217;s pretty good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think we&#8217;ll come in with a few more darks, but that&#8217;s good for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I like that a little more earthy. It&#8217;s whatever they are. Foliage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now orange. I want it like this ochre-y gray. No, I mean umber-y. It&#8217;s not even a color in his. He doesn&#8217;t even have a path really. It&#8217;s probably turned out to be more of a study than a riff, but I&#8217;m going to call it a riff anyway since I&#8217;m not that bothered with fidelity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Finishing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;re going to finish these up real quick. We don&#8217;t need to do much of this. I&#8217;ll be honest, I was just going to leave it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember my friend coming in saying that we need a little black just in a few spots. Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, that&#8217;s it. This is how you approach doing your own little tonalist studies from the masters. You pick something you love, you study it, you riff on it. You learn by doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mike New Site<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/book\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Book<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gallery<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@landscapepainter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/simtheory.ai\/chat\/URL_PENDING\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Members Area<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/abyssm.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">My Music<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">M Francis McCarthy, Your Painter in Residence<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Join me as I create a tonalist riff inspired by Francis Murphy&#8217;s &#8220;Evening&#8221; In the Substack studio pass area, I put up a study from 2021, a painting called &#8220;Evening&#8221; by Francis Murphy. It got me thinking, I really like that old painting.&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","rsfv-has-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions\/186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}