Painting is often about working out problems...figuring out how to get where you want to go...or where the painting wants to end.
I don't usually show paintings at this stage but I thought I'd share with my students how to take an objective look, identify problems and come up with some 'fixes'.
This was actually a totally different painting. It's been sitting in my studio for a long while --a piece I just couldn't love--and didn't see anything I wanted to do with it. So, I began a new painting right over the old one.
At this stage you have two options. Cover the old painting with white gesso or begin painting right over the old one. I prefer painting on the old piece because often something comes through and adds a lovely surprise to your new piece.
The lines here are left from the original piece. Haven't decided yet if I'll tweak them or take them out altogether. What would you do? I may take some out and if I miss them, paint them back in.
One big mistake I made is that I didn't step back often enough to look & assess how things were progressing. When your in front of your canvas painting for hours you don't see the proportions or relationships clearly. You can't tell how it will look in a room, seen from several feet away. I missed a couple obvious flaws by standing too close. (If you double click on this piece you'll see it more clearly.)
What do you think the most obvious flaw is? Is the middle cherry too big compared to the others? Don't you think it looks more like an apple? And..maybe there is too much space between the left and middle joined cherries....? I may need to move that second cherry over to the left a bit and make it smaller. But you don't want them all the same size either. Then it would become very static. Maybe the second cherry should be even smaller than the first one. Well, I will just have to try some of this.
Sometimes I'll say "hmmm, I wonder if X is too big?" Or "Is that blue right?" As painter Bob Burridge says: "If you have to ask the question you already know the answer!".
One way to avoid having to correct all this late into your project is to make a quick sketch first. Or do a rough study on paper with paint. Had I taken a bit of time to do that, most of these problems would have been figured out before I began the final painting.
Maybe I can put the painting in Photoshop now that I have a jpeg of it and play with it there - do my 'homework' on my laptop and then finish the painting.
We'll see how it goes. Who knows, maybe it'll end up something totally different - again!
No comments:
Post a Comment