Don't know why I keep photographing cars and trucks, 'cause I'm no car 'n' truck dude, for sure. But when I see them just as big shiny reflective colorful objects, they somehow excite me. Maybe it's the contrast to the grey of the city. Maybe because they are objects with their own coat of paint. In either case, I'm sure I won't run out of willing subjects any time soon.
I passed this house on a walk recently. It has this grand entrance, but it's crammed into a tiny space on a little crooked street up behind Buena Vista Park. The scale makes it look like a stage set.
I decided to try an exercise I'd read about — painting upside down. I turned the original photo upside down on my screen, and then painted what I saw, hoping to be able to concentrate on shapes and light and not rely so much on "what I knew to be true".
It was interesting, but I didn't find it a terribly useful exercise. I may try this again.
I got some bigger boards, so I thought I'd try some of the things that work on the tiny one, but on a larger surface. I took this photo at my lunch walk and thought it would be fun to paint some day, but I'm not ready to do people, I thought. Then I decided that someday is pretty much whenever you decide, so I just dove in.
Turns out people are just other blobby shapes, well at least in impressionism. Well at least the way I paint 'em.
Just got back from a drive through the country and thought I sketch up what I thought was a simple landscape (from a photo taken from a moving car). Too much energy in the tree, which I didn't really want to make the center of attention, despite it's placement. I really wanted to make it as I comprehended it – as a snapshot instant of light on the hills. Oh, well. I'll probably try this again, soon.
With a little left-over paint, I did a super quick sketch of the strawberries. This was about 10 minutes, if that, and the canvas is a 3-inch square. You know, the kind that just jump into your basket while waiting in line at Blick's.
I think one of the things that works in these little rushed sketches is that I only have time to go for the bigger shapes and that the entire canvas stays wet with paint, so that I apply new strokes thickly and lightly. Wish I could get that going in bigger paintings too. It's hard with acrylic, but I'll persevere.
Trying to get that Carol Marine magic happening, but I'm still using way too many brush strokes to get there. I can only think it's because I don't get the target colors mixed right before placing them. I also think I'm using terrible lighting on still life set-ups. I think I can see it clearly, but when I squint, it all goes very dark. I may need to build a light box set-up like CM uses, but I'm hesitant. It doesn't jibe with my plein air training — well, what little there is.
Oh, I'll get over it. Maybe.
This actually took two goes. After about an hour, I basically just scraped everything off, leaving a little bit of the basic shape and took a deep breath and then tackled it again. It seems sometimes you just have to get away from things. CM blogs a lot about doing this, especially after she's been absent from painting for more than a couple of days. I know understand that this is a vocabulary that, like a second language, gets rusty, very quickly with absence. I'm not even sure I even spelled "pomme" correctly!
I had another day to work on my submission to the Different Strokes task for the week, so I tried again at a larger size, with more time, but I don't think I really improved much on the quick version. I probably should have done these in reverse.
Or maybe I just need to get some bigger brushes. I'm off to Blicks manana and will see what I can find.
I found a site that posts a new reference photo every other Wednesday, and then encourages artists to post their interpretations.
I did this as a quick study, just to get a hang of what I might want to do. Tomorrow, I'll post the larger version. I laugh when I see the type from the postcard coming through my poor gesso prep work. I can't even see it when I'm working, but it shows up so well in photography. Bonus or bane? Hmmmm.
A quick study of a photo I took in the parking lot during open studios last Spring. It's a trailer of sorts, but I don't know what kind/brand. Like a lot of painters, I like shiny things that reflect the sky. This also features some people – a subject I usually try to avoid – but their reflections were so important that I had to include them.
I went to an art exhibit last Summer in Sonoma, and just about everyone had a painting of one of these in their booth. Second most frequent was rusty orange tractors.
More palette cleaning (I'm cheap and wasting paint still bugs me – I'll get over it).
This is based on the negative shapes in the NYT crossword puzzle, which are almost always symmetrical.
I also got an award sent to me by a wonderful painter, Camille LaRue Olsen, who has a great blog of her own, and who also contributes to the Different Strokes blog. Check out her stuff, and check back often. She also shows a lot of her preliminary sketches and other tips on her process, which can be very illuminating.
You just missed her first solo show, but I'm sure she'll be having more!
Get ready for a slew of boring studies! I was inspired by Carol Marine's use of objects lying about as subjects and she also mentioned how difficult white ceramics where particularly challenging. Boy was she right. This is a coffee mug that was on my desk, and though a little greener and darker than pure white, it was very challenging. So, I did a bunch of 'em, and am posting them in order. More interesting paintings to appear in a few days.
Trying to get a simple rendering of fruit, I'm still using too many brush strokes because I'm not getting the colors/values right on my palette first. As a result it starts to get muddy and overworked. I'm gonna try this again. A lot.
I also seem to be starting in the middle and working outward with no regard to composition. Not really what this exercise is about, but I really should be thinking of that as well. Couldn't hurt.
