LANDSCAPE PAINTING:
ESSENTIAL CONCEPTS AND TECHNIQUES FOR PLEIN AIR AND STUDIO PRACTICE

Author Mitchell Albala

Mitchell Albala teaches landscape painting at the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle. A respected and dedicated teaching artist for more than 25 years, he is best known for his atmospheric and semi-abstract landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. He has also lectured on Impressionism at Seattle Art Museum, has written about landscape painting for American Artist magazine, and hosts an educational website on the subject at mitchalbala.com. He has exhibited nationally and is represented by the Lisa Harris Gallery in Seattle.

Statement

I have always been fascinated by the abstract or secondary image that emerges when I look beneath the surface of a subject. Whether the abstraction is achieved through subject selection, composition or design, I consider a painting successful when viewers are struck by a powerful visual aesthetic before they recognize the literal subject. The landscape — with its endless variety of color and the great demand it places on simplification — serves as an ideal vehicle for me to explore these interests.

I am particularly interested in atmosphere and light. Harmony is a basic artistic instinct for me. At first glance this often appears to be achieved with analogous colors; yet, closer inspection reveals subtle temperature and hue shifts within the core color. These shifts add subtle variation to the color tapestry, as well as reinforce the suggestion of space.

As my subjects have become increasingly abstracted, as in the recent Waterfall, Alaska, or Cloudscape series, I am less able to rely on the usual spatial cues that indicate space, like overlapping forms, contrast, or volume. Instead, I depend more on the pattern of the design, edges, and at times, variations of paint texture, ranging from transparent to impasto.

My color sensibilities are influenced in part by the color-priority system of the Impressionists, but I am inspired by the abstract sensibilities of such artists as Edouard Vuillard, John Twactman, J.M.W. Turner, Mark Rothko, and other more contemporary landscape painters. I say that I "recognize" common attitudes in these artists, rather than say “influenced” by them because I believe that the artists we admire are really reflecting some part of our own vision that we are struggling to realize.