Anantomy of a Painting, Part 3.2

Artists often use something called thumbnails (rough sketches as small as a thumb) to make composition and design questions about such things as "How does a viewer's eye travel through?" or "Which arrangement feels more pleasing?" Here are the two versions side-by-side, as small as I could make them for posting. Call the one on the left "Cropped" and the one on the right "Feet." Below are diagrams of how I think the movement of the values works (green= middle/gray value movement, red= darks.)

What I want to know is, do you have a preference for one over the other? I'm having trouble making up my mind. I can always paint as in "Feet" and cut it down later, but the parameters do affect painting decisions enroute. So, please vote for Cropped or Feet and let me know!

Anatomy of a Painting - Part 3.1

Ok, here we have white as the majority, gray as the next, and black for accents (although I got a little carried away.) This is more in keeping with my current preferences in watercolor: a high key, lighter value painting overall. This does not mean that all that white will not be painted, it just means it will be light value color.

So, am I ready to hit the "real" painting? Not quite. I still have to fool around with a color sketch, or I will fall prey to my tendency toward a crazy quilt of disorganized color.

Perhaps this is a good time to discuss why I do all this advance planning. One art friend thinks I over-analyze and pick it to death before I even start. Might be true, but I think the other end of the spectrum (just jumping in and praying for a good result) is just as foolish. One of the reasons for doing all this preparation before painting is that, with many problems solved ahead of time and a guide/map to follow, I can concentrate on my favorite part of painting-- a loose, juicy paint quality. Also, watercolor is often called "unforgiving" because it doesn't lend itself easily to corrections or changes as with oil, pastel or acrylic. If folks using these mediums find themselves boxed into a corner, they can just scrape it off or paint over it. Watercolor can be scrubbed off or removed with a variety of tricks, but the surface exacts a price, which is usually fresh, clean color. Since that is what I like the very best about watercolor, it makes sense for me to do what I can to avoid problems ahead of time.

Anatomy of a Painting - Part 3

So here's a sketch using only 3 values of white, gray and black to try out what it will look like, composition-wise. White-out is apparently a different color than the white of my paper, but close enough. It looks busy to me, fussy. There is no real predominance of any one value, and IMHO one color needs to be a majority, another less so, and one should just be accents. That would feel more organized to me, a more pleasing arrangement. Oh... just noticed that this is cropped version, so I had better take a look at it as drawn out the other way as well. Looks like another value sketch is in order, this time with feet.

Anatomy of a Painting - Part 2

Here I've drawn out the new version, and this time I have included the feet and cut the space on top, and I have straightened them out. (The paper is white, I think the warm center color is a reflection from my orange fleece). Once again, I was in a hurry to just jump in, and then I realized I still had not made any kind of plan for background shaped, values or color-- which was my mistake the first time around. And I should have done this before I drew it out on the (not cheap!) 300 lb. paper. Even though the exact size and shape is not written in stone, the mere existence of edges affects choices to be made while painting. So, back to the sketchbook for some visual thinking.

Anatomy of a Painting - Part 1

22 x 30 on 300 lb rough Fabriano Artistico

Once again, I have let a deadline creep up on me for entering a juried show. Some view being accepted to the larger national shows as a real big deal; others view such shows as cattle calls and more expense ultimately than they are worth. Either way, it is the way of the world of watercolor, where one can allegedly see the very best of what's being done in the medium. It is a way to get your art, your name, and your availability as a workshop instructor out there for consideration. It is a fact that repeated acceptance at this level of exhibition increases the value of one's art. Award money can be as much as $1000 for top prize, and so on down. Sometimes you can even sell a painting and avoid the expense of return shipping.

The above is a painting I started a while ago from a photo taken in Italy. I am considering this image, if not this painting, for submission to a show -- if I can get my act together in the next week and make this painting happen. I did not put a lot of advance planning into it, and now I can see that there are other options for composition and color. While not to say that this is a bad start, it's just that I can tell I was just wandering around in it, being timid and disorganized. I will continue with it if only to use it as a walk through for a new painting from this same image. This is something I do frequently, paint more than one of the same thing, sometimes at the same time. This gives me the opportunity to take a risk, try something out, and learn from it.

If You Squint It Looks Like A Pirate

Same guy, different treatment....3 down, 4 to catch up.

Two Guys

Trying to do as many different faces as possible, lifting sources from magazines and newspapers, and just trying to get something going in application and color. However, I forgot that gel pens bleed when you paint over them.

A New Year

Time to try again to be accountable. The goal has not changed, but I have learned a bit more about my own proclivities-- like procrastination. For instance, despite the date of this post, it is REALLY 1/6/10 and I am six posts behind..... not to worry, some things are in the works and if I must triple-post to catch up, I will. If I've learned anything from last year, it is that days get missed, a lot of posts are less than great, but there is still tremendous benefit in continuing to try. And so I shall.

Madonna-In-Progress

8 x 10 oil

I needed some painted pieces for a liturgical art website (Sanctuary Renovations, coming soon) so I tried to knock this off but ran out of steam and the ability to make decisions about color, etc. and so that = stop. My ham-handedness increases proportionate to the amount of time spent on a piece, so it was time to give it a rest. Maybe after this simmers a bit, I'll figure out where it needs to go.

In the Garden

Oil, 10 x 8

Well, not hardly in the garden. Not now. Snow and rain and sleet and cold. But I digress. This was painted for my mother, who desires a painting each year about this time in order to make a donation for some such charity event. Usually I provide Madonnas with Child from various walks of life (as opposed to being golden-haired northern Europeans) but this time I eased off the soap box and worked the treacle instead. Hope she likes it.