From one to five....

You just start somewhere and keep going….

Do you need some more ways to get your paint brush moving?

     Ok here you go.  Find an interesting photo with a lot of subjects in it and good gray scale ranges.  Then make yourself a view finder, by either cutting a square or rectangle in the middle of a paper, or find an old slide that you don’t care for the photo in it and take it out.  I like to paint my view finder light gray so it does not distract from the image. 

    Now move your view finder over the photo and find a section that looks interesting, and work up a sketch or painting of it.  Next; take that painting or sketch and do four more, correcting or changing characteristics.  At some point the idea will continue to grow and you will have some unique works of art.

1. The reference photo from a magazine...

 2. The section I picked...

 3.  First try...

 4. A little color...

 5.  Another try...

 6. Starting to get a life of its own....

 7.  Where it ended up

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Finishing Touch

One of the hard points about being a painter is putting down the brush.

Once you get into the swing of painting, and the momentum is rolling, putting the breaks on is very difficult.

One way to stop is when you reach that point where there is hesitation to where the next brush mark should be …. Just put the brush down and walk away. Clean up and leave the painting where it is in plain view to observe.

     I did this with the Pear painting, and noticed the areas that needed correcting. Each time I stopped to look at the painting I ask myself a few questions.

1. Do I like the structure?

2. Is the perspective correct?

3. What is the focal point?

I had the answers before I started painting on it again.

What was changed is slight, color and contrast where the pear and the glass meet. And there is a correction to the base of the glass. But sometimes little changes make a big difference in the over picture. Just thought I would share some finishing touches with you.


First stopping point.




Corrections for perspective and focal point.




Addressing highlights




Finished painting.






 













Thinking on paper

Thinking on paper......

Having a composition in mind is only one step towards painting a picture.
I know what I want to paint, and have an idea of the lay out. That is a good start.
Now I need to decide the mood. To visualize the possible moods, I think out loud, on paper. In this case looking at the subject in positive, a negative and neutral version.
The practice is done on gold toned watercolor paper with black and white for the positive and negative, with neutral colors for the other.
What I decided is …there are 3 paintings to do. Yep I like all three.
Next decision will be what actual colors will work. Sounds like I have more time to play with practice paintings before hitting the canvas.
How long does it take to paint a picture? Not long.
How much time does one spend thinking about painting that picture? A very long time.

That is ok, if you think with a paint brush.

How to watch a DVD

Open package, load DVD, watch. Nope, there is more to it.

I just got through watching, Caroline Jasper’s art instruction DVD called “Landscape Oil Painting on Red Ground”, excellent DVD, highly suggest it. But the truth is this is the second time through it for me.

What I like to do is watch an instructional DVD the first time, relaxed, as if watch a TV show. Put the DVD in the player, put my feet up, and just relax. The second time I am ready to go to work. I have my material ready, and my digital camera handy.

As I start painting along, I will pause the DVD, and take a quick snap shot of what is a good reference point of my painting. The reason I do this is short term memory, yep I will most likely forget what I did along the way. This happens especially if my materials are slightly different. Jasper paint on red ground (red colored gesso) with oil paints. I like gold ground better and use acrylics. So by having references to how my painting develops I can expand on this in the future. If you can refer to how something has been was done originally there is no going back and reinventing the wheel.

There is so much contrast to the start and end of a painting, and both points are extremely important, references are important.

Most of the time I start with gold as an under painting but I also posted a photo of a blue under painting, because I like to break my own rules. But if you follow my blog you have probably noticed that I do think that a colorful foundation can be very helpful with acrylic painting. And Caroline Jasper is an artist that uses that base to make beautiful work. Check out her DVDs and web site to find out more.

http://www.carolinejasper.com

Hey don’t forget to check out my web site too:

http://mbschiros.artspan.com

Now What

Now what….

That is one the things that voice in my head often will ask me. And usually it is when
I am staring at a blank paper or canvas. Now that I have shared that with you I will give you the latest answer I came up with. Grab a pencil, pick a spot in the room your in and do a quick sketch. If you are feeling brave do that sketch, but do not look at the paper you are drawing. Use very few lines just enough to capture the basic shapes of objects.
That sketch will be wild and strange, but that is good. That wild sketch will give you permission to go any where you want with it. It is not perfect to start with so you do not have worry about a perfect painting. (Love that line; think I will read it one more time just for a smile.)
Now grab about 3 colors, and make one decision do I want a warm or cool feeling.
If it is warm use two warm colors like red and yellow and one cool like a blue.
If it is cool use say, blue and purple with an orange. Throw in a black to help deepen some colors if you are using watercolor. If you are using acrylics also add white.
Paint the majority of the painting with the first two colors saving the last one just to highlight or add some spark to the picture at the every end.
This is fun and practice but also can be an amazing painting when you are finished.
Give it a try and see what happens.
By the way the pictures are from my bed room and my living room. And yes messing rooms are more fun to paint, now a reason to avoid house work...life really is good.