Picture Stories - Winter Cabins

Susan Brenning
Jun 30, 2021
5 min read

Introducing Picture Stories

The journey of honing the gift of painting

A little introduction

Hi, I’m Susan and I’d like to share a little with you about my painting. I started painting in Jr. high and High school and tested several different methods.

For over 10 years, my sister-in-law, her daughter, and I attended a three-day summer painting class at my former workplace, Gullbrannagården.

Before then I had dabbled in oil painting after taking a class for a term in a study circle. After testing acrylics, I soon found that I enjoyed them better as they are water-soluble and easy to clean without strong chemicals. Also, you can make it look like oil with more paint and less water, or like watercolors by using more water.

It is a flexible medium that dries quickly, allowing you to work faster and layer colors without risking bleeding or mixing. If you need the paint to dry slower you can add a Gel Medium (matte or glossy). The gel lengthens the drying time of the paint as well as making the texture more liquid and thinning the paint.

Video Introduction

In the video below I talk freely about a particular attempt at painting with acrylic paint. I have written in more detail, the thoughts I speak of, in the text below.

A parenthesis: Although I am American I have done most of my painting in Sweden. I have learned the painting terms in Swedish and have difficulties finding the right words in English. The word ‘canvas’ escapes me often for example among other words. I leave my language mistakes just for the fun of it. It might give someone a laugh who can understand the difficulties of being bilingual.

Read about Winter Cabins

As I mentioned above, I’ve spent over 10 summers on a three-day painting course with my sister-in-law and her daughter. Those days were the most productive of all my painting days. I have and do paint at home at times, but nothing compared to the number of paintings I’ve done during that course. Those days have been wonderful, allowing me to concentrate on painting and getting to know other like-minded painters. I truly recommend joining a course if you ever have the opportunity.

You learn so much more by watching others and listening to advice from those who know more or who are learning, just like you.

Using calendar and advertisement photos

My Winter Cabin painting is from the original photo in the Swedish calendar above. I painted it in 2018. Pictures from calendars or advertisements are fun to use because they have a good balance and exciting colors and shadows. I can’t sell my paintings because of that though since I assume that the original photos are licensed. It’s okay to use them in the learning process and my sharing them here is to share what I’ve learned. The original photo was from one of the winter months. It was difficult to paint as it had snow. Snow is difficult to paint, I think because it’s white. The whole canvas is white. If I were a more learned painter, I could simply leave the snow sections bare and let the white canvas show through, but I’m not.

White as snow?

However, snow isn’t only white. It can be dark blue or purple, depending on the shadows and where the light is coming in. I learned to make snow look like snow by adding other colors to it. Letting the background colors make the snow pop out. As you see in this photo there are hints of yellow, blue, purple, and gray in the snow that we perceive as white.

The process of painting snow was difficult, I had to pay special attention to the snow on the trees and the edge of the roof. The way I got the snow falling off the roof to pop was to paint a darker shadow behind the snow and the edge of the snow line. I had to learn by trial and the teacher was willing to give pointers. It was my way to learn how to make a technically difficult photo work as a painting. I’m rather satisfied with the results, if I may say so myself. Of course, there is a lot more for me to learn.

The background should fade away

Besides the snow being difficult to paint, I had to redo the background. I like painting trees, really landscapes of any kind. I find it kind of meditative to paint the branches and leaves. There are no leaves on this painting but there is always a place to paint a new branch. My problem was that my painting became flat because I had put so much color and detail into the background where the trees were. To fix that and give my painting depth I had to fade out a lot of the detail I had put into the tree line in the background and paint over the branches in a lighter color. I had to make it more defuse by painting over it all in a thin-watery white so that it looked farther away from where you are standing in front of the fence.

Details make a difference

The trees in the front of the painting have a stronger color and more detail to bring them closer to the viewer. The same principle was used for the fence to bring it forward as well. The opposite applied to the snow. To make the snow fade into the background and look like it was further back, I had to make it darker. That is because the pure white snow moves toward the eye of the viewer and the darker snow color moves away. That’s something that I had to learn, and I am happy to share that extra tip with you. At the time of writing this, it is very hot in Sweden. I had to come indoors to cool off and thought sharing a winter landscape could help cool me off. I had also worked extra hours at my new home healthcare job and needed to regain strength.

It can be difficult to let the areas of life that should be front and center, actually take that spot.

It is easier to put time and detail into things that should matter less. When I find myself painting strong colors and detail to problems and irritations instead of paying attention to the good things God has given me, I need to change my focus.

Let the bad fade out and the good pop. As difficult as it is to do in painting, we can find help to do that in life if we go to the Lord in praise.

Sharing Picture Stories

I plan on sharing my paintings and a little story of each here on my website. I hope that somehow, I can inspire you to use the gifts God has given you to spread joy and the knowledge of our Lord, giving others a desire to seek a deeper personal relationship with Him.

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