Color & Light, Issue 1

Color & Light

What is a PAINTING STYLE?

Color & Light

Editor

Linda Hanson Publisher

Red Rock Fine Art, Inc.

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© 2023 Red Rock Fine Art, Inc.

What is a PAINTING STYLE?

By Erin Hanson

Istarted painting one painting a week about sixteen years ago. I had just moved to Las Vegas to rock climb at Red Rock Canyon, and I instantly fell in love with its red and orange sandstone cliffs. I decided I could paint nothing but landscapes for the rest of my life.

Although I had been painting in oils since age eight, I hadn’t yet developed a distinctive style. My subjects and media varied widely, from watercolor and ink Batman comics to delicately detailed colored pencil drawings of bird feathers. I painted everything from abstracts to portraits to carefully shaded pencil drawings.

After making the decision to paint one painting a week (and often more than one painting per week), it was like learning to paint all over again. I had never painted brightly-colored landscapes before, but waking up before dawn and watching the sun rise over Red Rock Canyon inspired me to fill my palette with cadmium orange and yellow, alizarin crimson, and

magenta. I wanted my paintings to pulse with color like the desert landscape I had learned to love.

The traditional method of painting in oils that I had been taught involved lots of waiting for painting layers to dry, breathing in turpentine, brush cleaning, laying down more washes, making minor changes, waiting for the painting to dry, and scrubbing paint around on the palette into a muddy mess.

I didn’t believe the highly textural and richly colored red rocks could be captured with such methods.

Instead, I experimented with premixing my entire palette of colors using a palette knife, before I ever picked up a brush to paint. I could then use my brush to scoop pure color and lay the brush strokes sideby-side, without layering. This gave my paintings an exciting feel, a fresh

and outdoorsy feel, a textural and colorful feel.

After creating about fifty paintings with this technique, modifying and experimenting all the while, I felt like I was starting to get the hang of how to capture red rock landscape on canvas. The thickly applied brush strokes met together like the different planes of rock faces, each plane a different color depending the angle it was facing the sun.

Through trial and error, I discovered which five colors I could mix together in any combination without getting muddy. Using only these five primary colors, I could mix thousands of variations.

Once, I sanded down an old painting to paint over it, and instead of covering it over with white gesso, I decided to paint right over the top of the old painting. I was enthralled with how the color of the previous painting peeked out in between my brush strokes, and from then on, I deliberately primed my canvases with bright shades of color.

After painting a few hundred oil paintings, I fell into a groove with

my painting technique. I fell into a groove with how I held my brush, how I applied my underpainting, how I chose my light and shadow colors, how I painted clouds, how I painted water, how I captured the bark on trees.

I came up with rules for myself, like “try not to overlap any brush strokes,” and “get it right the first time,” and “don’t make any changes to the painting after it has been signed.”

The more paintings I completed, the more a unique painting style emerged, one that was exclusively “Erin Hanson.” Finally, I came up with a name for my style: Open Impressionism.

What is a painting style? It is the grooves of habit an artist creates by practicing their craft for thousands of hours. It is what makes their creations unique.

DISCOVER YOUR COLORS

ORIGINAL OILS BY ERIN HANSON

LETTERS & REVIEWS

Dear Erin, M

y wife was thrilled with the painting. We are so glad to have an original of yours in our house. We placed it on a small wall between the dining room and kitchen, near a window. The changing light from the window makes us feel like we own many paintings by you. Every hour it’s different. Seeing how much inspiration a small original painting by you gives, we definitely need a larger one elsewhere in the house.

We have many original paintings, calligraphy, tapestries, sculptures, and rugs we have gathered over the years, by artists from all over the world. But there is something about your Open Impressionism that is so exciting. So honest, and yet complex. So alive. Thank you for sharing your genius and command of color and medium.

-M. & S.H., Portland, OR

FUN FACTS

Did You Know?

ERIN HANSON HAS PAINTED FOR APPROXIMATELY 20,834 HOURS IN THE PAST 16 YEARS, CREATING A TOTAL OF OVER 2,948 ORIGINAL OIL PAINTINGS.

Reflected Autumn Oil on canvas

40 x 28 in

This painting (above) was inspired by a photo safari I took to the Blue Ridge Mountains last autumn. This piece captures everything I love about the fall. I wanted to capture a special moment when I was outside, surrounded by nature, standing by a quiet pool in the early morning, when suddenly the clouds parted and the sunshine broke through, making the autumn-hued trees explode with color.

- Erin Hanson

ORIGINAL PAINTINGS SOLD LAST MONTH

ALPINE BLUES

PRIVATE COLLECTION

DANVILLE, CA

ASPENS IN GOLD

PRIVATE COLLECTION

SCOTTSDALE, AZ

AUTUMN FIELDS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

LOS BANOS, CA

CANYON BLOOMS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

DUBLIN, CA

CLOUDED MARSH

PRIVATE COLLECTION

SAINT PETERSBURG, FL

COASTAL POPPIES IV

PRIVATE COLLECTION

BENICIA, CA

CYPRESS BLUE

PRIVATE COLLECTION

DANVILLE, CA

DESERT REFLECTIONS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

HESPERIA, CA

EUCALYPTUS BLUE

PRIVATE COLLECTION

DANVILLE, CA

HIGH DESERT BLOOMS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

SCOTTSDALE, AZ

LAVENDER TULIPS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

PALO ALTO, CA

LIGHTED FIELDS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

SAN DIEGO, CA

OAKS IN LIGHT

PRIVATE COLLECTION

AMITY, OR

OJAI POPPIES

PRIVATE COLLECTION

CORONADO, CA

PAINTBRUSH BLOOMS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

BRANCHVILLE, NJ

PETITE BLOOMS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

ST. CLOUD, MN

PINE SKY

PRIVATE COLLECTION

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

SUNSET CLOUDS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

SAINT PETERSBURG, FL

TURQUOISE WATERS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

LONDON, UK

VISTA PEAKS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

DANVILLE, CA

YELLOW IRIS

PRIVATE COLLECTION

LOS BANOS, CA

ZION LIGHT

PRIVATE COLLECTION

MOUNTAIN GREEN, UT

Blooming Field Oil on canvas

1805 NE Colvin Court

McMinnville, OR 97128

(503) 334-3670

60 x 48

The Erin Hanson Gallery