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| #1 5x7 on oil linen panel |
Well I'm getting real tired of looking at fruit and the right brain, left brain battle continues! The transition from painter to artist remains illusive but it's attainable and I get an occasional glimpse...
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That said, this is an experiment for me. I've decided to do a series of small paintings that consists of three pieces of fruit. The idea here is to mess with value, chroma, design, paint manipulation and the play between light and shadow to see how they all influence each other. It's VERY challenging but fun. These are the first four in the series of still life paintings that I've done attempting to address the above. I'm going to change the palette for the next series of three pieces of fruit.
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| #3 8x10 oil on linen panel |
My post after painting #1 in April of 2014
After a couple of days on the sidelines at an amazing art workshop in New Harmony, Indiana earlier this month, I've been motivated to "experiment." I get caught up in the same old trap time after time, allowing my left brain to dictate when I KNOW it's my right brain I need to pay more attention to. It's a constant battle! With this little 5x7, I attempted a couple of things. One of my goals was to demonstrate 3 different values with various degrees of chroma. To this, I partially succeeded. Another goal was to breakaway from too many edges and allow the edges that I do allow to have meaning. Again, I partially succeeded. Finally, how to use chroma effectively. As with the values, degrees of the use of chroma is very important. If all of your subjects have the same value and same degree of chroma, then there is nothing to draw attention to the part of the painting that you're trying to draw attention to. This painting was a real attempt at doing all of the above. It's a first step! So much room for improvement!
One thing "relearned" was always solve all of your problems before that first brush stroke. I thought this little painting out, prepared and then painted. Now, with that said, that doesn't always mean you're going to get a Monet! What it does mean is that IF you do it over and over, your chances of a successful painting increase tremendously. I want to thank my good friend CW Mundy for allowing me to observe a couple of days at the workshop. It was very, very rewarding. I hope that next year I can attend full time!
* Side note... I was so excited over the "relative" success of this little painting that I couldn't wait to get back to the studio. The following day I did just that. The results..... I scraped it! Why? Because I really didn't take the time to solve all of the problems. I got sloppy. It was a total mess...
