I used Adobe Photoshop elements to decide what changes I wanted to make to this scene of the stone steps (see previous post). I glazed burnt umber on the top three steps as well as the right side of the painting. I'm much happier with the results and Photoshop helped with the final decision making.
I started this painting as a demo during my Saturday landscape workshop. I brought it home and have been staring at it not quite sure how to proceed. The color seemed harsh and not quite sunlit and the painting feels spotty, soooooooo..........
I photographed the painting and then happily painted away on it using Adobe Photoshop Elements.
I toned down the blues and grayed down the greens by using bits of violet throughout. It's better but it still feels spotty. So now for some major simplifcation.
Here I used a neutral gray green to glaze over the tree on the left, the top half of the steps and the right side under the banister. By joining the shapes in a neutral tone I think I may have solved the spottieness and made the painting more coherent. All this was done on the computer (God bless Adobe Photoshop!) and now to the studio to see if it works.
I began creating these paintings after a run of bad weather. I was teaching a plein air class on Monday's and every single week we were rained out. I became frustrated having the students work from photos and decided to bring the outdoors in. This was supposed to be a lesson on color and how everything outside has harmony. I laid a white cloth on a table and and threw down a variety of greens and branches, rocks, moss and even dirt. I then added a couple of flowers and fruit to anchor the composition. The table looked so gorgeous that a few of the students decided to paint the set up and their paintings were equally as exciting. Now this is an exercise I use when I want to teach color harmony as well as creating a composition on the canvas that allows the eye to move around. It is also a lot of fun when you want to loosen up.
A painting can either be about color or value. I have read that statement in several art books and it has taken me awhile to understand that simple concept. Here is the secret, one must dominate. An analogy can be drawn where two very loud people are talking to you at the same time and you can't follow either conversation, think Thanksgiving dinner with drunk surly relatives. That does not mean that a value based painting lacks color, it's just that the colors are downplayed or grayed out in order to let the value differences hold their stature. Same goes for color. Good colorists understand that all colors have value but where color is the concept the large values will tend to be closer but still separate.
I see color intensely and in layers and find myself swooning over passages of pure pigment. I also love high value contrast and it's power to demand attention from across the room. When I run into trouble it is because I did not commit to value or color and thus the message is muffled. The painting posted here is an example of this. I wanted the painting to be about the pot but the red of the onion kept drawing my attention away. When I tried to focus on the onion, I felt the pot suffered too much. I would like to paint this pot again, just not with this onion. A different set up should help clarify if it is about value or color.
I have an odd complaint. The recent weather was too nice. Summer and especially fall gave a generous dose of blue skies and pleasant temperatures. Being from Michigan and knowing what is in store for us from November thru Mid April I felt I had to take advantage of every beautiful day and use my painting time to work plein air. Now it is November and the cold gray days have descended and I have a studio full of half finished plein air pieces. My work schedule was erratic so it was difficult to return to the same spot twice under similar weather conditions so my tendency was to start a new one each time I went out. For most of these I did not take photo references and I think there may be real freedom in trying to complete these in the studio using visual memory and concentrating on what will make the painting work. I’ll post some of the before and after on this blog.
My first before is of a line of tents from a civil war reenactment. I did not get to finish because the soldiers returned back to their tents after morning exercises and promptly fell asleep in the tents. To keep painting seemed awkward.
I met with a friend today who is an online marketing wizard as well as a gifted artist. The goal of our meeting, besides partaking of chocolate cake and beer, was to bounce marketing ideas off of each other. She is interested in pursuing workshops and my wish is to expand my online presence to create more sales and workshop opportunities. One thing that became clear is that I need to utilize the offerings of my website by becoming a regular blogger. In the past my blog posts were about a specific painting or painting experience and I have gone weeks if not months between blog posts feeling that my day to day experiences were not important enough. Her point was that the blog is a dialog and that the goal of the person posting is to engage the reader in a conversation. She gave examples of how I could reword some of my teaching handouts (of which I am prolific) and do a whole series of postings from one concept.
Wow, what a revelation.
So here it is-my new goal- to blog twice a week minimum, starting now. I'm even going to be gutsy and allow for fine art views syndication.
Talk to you in a couple of days……
