In this edition of Plein Air Today Painting of the Week, we highlight Brian Sindler’s atmospheric landscape, “Clouds, Sister Bay.” Painted just after a rainstorm, the piece explores the delicate balance between shape, rhythm, and atmosphere. Learn how Sindler simplified the scene to bring the land and sky into perfect harmony.
”Clouds, Sister Bay”
By Brian Sindler
I painted “Clouds, Sister Bay” in the early morning after a rainstorm. I wanted to simplify the scene and put the emphasis on the low-lying clouds that were lingering near the horizon after the rain.
My Process
I painted the clouds very quickly and then spent a lot of time trying to render the pier, the lamp posts, and their reflections on the water. But the more detail I put into those elements, the more they began to compete with the clouds and seemed out of harmony with the sky. The clouds had a spontaneous, almost accidental quality, while the carefully rendered details of the pier felt disconnected from them.
I started simplifying the landmass and the pier several times. Eventually I realized that I wasn’t trying to make the pier more accurate—I was trying to make it belong to the same world as the clouds. I continued to remove and simplify details until the rendering of the pier began to have the same spontaneous quality as the sky.
Fixing the “Problem”
That experience is something I often find while painting. What initially seems like a problem with one part of a painting is often really a problem with the relationship between the parts. I had to stop thinking about the pier as an object that needed to be described and start thinking about it as a shape, a rhythm, and a part of the overall atmosphere.
For me, the painting ultimately became less about depicting Sister Bay after a rainstorm and more about preserving that brief moment when the landscape felt quiet and atmospheric. I’m more concerned about making a painting rather than merely describing a scene.
Connect with the Artist: www.briansindler.com
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Blog post prepared for the web by Cherie Dawn Haas, Editor of Plein Air Today
