{"id":230,"date":"2026-04-25T10:13:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/?p=230"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:13:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:13:24","slug":"breaking-through-6x8-live-painting-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/?p=230","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Through 6&#215;8 &#8211; Live Painting Session"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The making of - Breaking Through 6x8 - LIVE!\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ijg7wTOE-qw?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>Today I&#8217;m working on a 6&#215;8 painting based on a scene I&#8217;ve painted many times before. It&#8217;s from a field in England. I&#8217;ve done versions of this composition so many times that I know it works. Every painting I&#8217;ve done from this reference has been good, which tells me something about the power of a solid reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Reference and Why It Works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The reference itself is fairly simple\u2014just a tree mass, a stream, and a field. Nothing particularly grand. But that&#8217;s the thing about tonalist painting: you don&#8217;t need an inspiring vista. It could just be a tree and a field, and the subject can almost be just the overall light and harmony in the scene. Anything can be your subject. Any scene anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead of using AI to generate a stream, I went to Yandex and searched for &#8220;dream through a field.&#8221; I found a couple of references that might work. I don&#8217;t waste a lot of time looking for the perfect thing, but I won&#8217;t settle either. It&#8217;s a balance that&#8217;s got to be struck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reference has some interesting qualities. The stream is more defined than in previous versions, which gives me more information to work with. There&#8217;s also a nice green coming in, which is a cool addition. I don&#8217;t want that too strong though, so I&#8217;ll be ghosting some of that color.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One thing I&#8217;ve learned is to be sensitive to the amount of sky. I had tons more sky above in earlier versions. Now I&#8217;m more aware of how crucial that decision is. The horizon line is easy to overlook, but it&#8217;s one of the most important decisions you&#8217;re going to make in a landscape painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Underpainting<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m doing my underpainting with three Utrecht colors again. I&#8217;ve been favoring threes for my underpaintings lately. The underpainting is just paying off really nice in this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve got a whole new cloth here, so I&#8217;m going to cut it up and wipe out a bunch of these. I like a little patina, but I need lint-free cloths for the actual painting. You do have lint where you cut it though, so you&#8217;ve got to pull that off. Otherwise it&#8217;s going to end up potentially in your painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Camera Setup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I spent a while figuring out which lens I was going to use. I&#8217;m on a Samyang 80mm, which gives a different focal length on this crop sensor, the Canon R7. My 50mm was right up on the painting, so I needed to step back. The Samyang&#8217;s minimum focusing distance is a meter, which is workable. This will turn out nice and sharp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve also slowed down my frames per second to 25, which means I&#8217;ve got that doubled for my shutter speed. I&#8217;m getting better at this technical side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Color Mixing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I need raw energy in the palette. There&#8217;ll be a little bit of green in this, but a lot of browns and reds and things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the sky, I want some opacity, and my opacity generator on the umber is Mars yellow. It&#8217;s a great problem solver. I&#8217;m bringing in some burnt umber, which is going to be a big player. The color I&#8217;m getting is quite close to what I want up in the sky\u2014a little prettier, which ain&#8217;t a bad thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moving into some reds, I&#8217;m going serious. I bring in some cadmium, and look how strong that is. If a color goes off the rails like that, put some aside. Keep a little bit. Maybe you won&#8217;t have killed it too much. Don&#8217;t just keep adding paint to the pile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the yellows, I&#8217;m doing a kind of yellow made out of yellow ochre and cadmium yellow, with some orange so it doesn&#8217;t feel all lonely and isolated. I&#8217;ll bring in a little bit of burnt sienna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I need a dark. I&#8217;m just going to take what I had and a little more Mars Black, and that&#8217;s going to give me pretty solid dark action there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The burnt umber is interesting. I&#8217;ll be complaining about it the whole time I&#8217;m using it. But it&#8217;s a crucial color. A lot of that tree is kind of that color. The thing that&#8217;s tying everything together here is like the burnt umber. That&#8217;s subtle, but it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the greens, I&#8217;ve got some here already. I don&#8217;t need to mix a ton of things. It&#8217;s already kind of mixed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The challenge with sunset scenes is getting the blue right. It ain&#8217;t going to be blue. It&#8217;s going to be gray. I&#8217;m going to need to use a little bit of actual blue into the gray. We&#8217;ll do all sorts of things with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Painting Process: The Sky<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This is going to be our sky brush. It&#8217;s a DOS Bristol Filbert, a four. Look at this eye\u2014it&#8217;s been worn down. This one looks like it&#8217;s been used one time. Let&#8217;s see how this looks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, that looks amazing. Let&#8217;s go a little thicker. That&#8217;s for the conservators of the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m putting in the sky now. It&#8217;s quite dark, but it&#8217;s not dark in the reference too. Maybe a little more red. I&#8217;m sneaking in with my stuff. The umber would have brought in some coolness I didn&#8217;t want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We want some of this that&#8217;s flatter and more umber-y. Almost like a stench of the blue effect. You don&#8217;t want red everywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is a little more subtle than some do. Seems pretty bright, but we&#8217;re going to be going a lot lighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Landscape Work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The underpainting is just paying off really nice. The colors are coming through beautifully. Here&#8217;s a good rule: don&#8217;t spend a lot of time defining things that aren&#8217;t defined in the reference. Just keep them loose in your painting. But if there are things that are very defined in your reference, probably a good rule just to not define them in the painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reference is totally vague in some areas. So there&#8217;s a good tip for you: don&#8217;t over render something that&#8217;s vague in the reference. Just keep it all loose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s a big mistake you can make where you have the light in the middle going out like that. Don&#8217;t do it. It&#8217;s not right. I do tend to favor one side or the other. So here, I&#8217;ll just do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now I&#8217;m getting into the landscape. I was tempted to get the flats. I know what the flats do so well. I was working with Silver Grand Prix and those are expensive. Not that these Robert Simmons are cheap either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The matter is definitely dumping here and juicing it up. That&#8217;s grass. The grass needs some work. Probably not quite green enough. Let&#8217;s see how we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nice toe on this brush. More gray too on the brush. In here we got a nice color. It&#8217;s a little light. Yeah, I was making it redder but I think I want it flatter. I want it both redder and flatter. Can&#8217;t do it. That needs to be darker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m really happy with the way this painting is going. I had a good feeling about it from the start. It&#8217;s a little looser than some of my other work, but great brush. Very pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I do that light green this will be a nice payoff. We&#8217;ve got so many payoffs already. We&#8217;re going to do this gold color which I mixed. That&#8217;s a little subdued. But that&#8217;s alright. We&#8217;ve got a lot of other stuff going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s have a look in the camera. It&#8217;s nice. Very nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Principles<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of what I&#8217;m doing here comes down to a few core principles:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Visualize the outcome and work towards it while being perfectly fine with failing.<\/strong> That&#8217;s how you paint. That&#8217;s way better than anything else that technically I&#8217;m telling you or doing. That tip will serve you very well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Think of layers. Think of stages and steps.<\/strong> Don&#8217;t go everything straight. Never anything all the way across in a big row. Rows are the enemy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>When you&#8217;re mixing colors, if a color goes off the rails, put some aside.<\/strong> Keep a little bit. Maybe you won&#8217;t have killed it too much. Don&#8217;t just keep adding paint to the pile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Don&#8217;t over render what&#8217;s vague in the reference.<\/strong> Just keep it all loose. But if there are things that are very defined in your reference, probably a good rule just to not define them in the painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out the book, <em>13 Years of Accumulated Painting Knowledge: How to Work in a Toneless Way<\/em>. I&#8217;ll send it to you anywhere on the planet for $65 US. International shipping is included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Also check out my channel, Michael Francis McCarthy on YouTube (@mfrancismcarthy), and the new website at mfrancismccarthy.art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mike&#8217;s New Site<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.substack.com\/subscribe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Substack<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Painting Website<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/mailing-list\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mailing List<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/products\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Store<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/abyssm.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">My Music<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.landscapepainter.co.nz\/donate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Support<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCS6NSbrJaICWu2Oztt_PXeA\/join\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Members Area<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>M Francis McCarthy, Your Painter in Residence<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today I&#8217;m working on a 6&#215;8 painting based on a scene I&#8217;ve painted many times before. It&#8217;s from a field in England. I&#8217;ve done versions of this composition so many times that I know it works. Every painting I&#8217;ve done from this reference&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":231,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-painting","rsfv-has-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","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=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/232"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}