Friday, October 31, 2008

Halloween Treat

about 6x10 pastel and watercolor on Uart paper $100. plus tax and shipping
This morning the grasses were covered with frost: serious glove weather again.
Recently I have been rereading Hensche on Painting. He reduces some important painting ideas into few words. He preaches "light key," something I have been thinking about a lot recently.
Hensche says, "Always turn your study of the landscape into studied large masses until you have achieved the light key." Today (with the freezing color weather) those decisions were made lightening fast in watercolor, carried to the car to dry by the heater and next elaborated on with pastel. That's my Halloween trick for you. Now, back to the studio. Happy Halloween!

3 comments:

Karen said...

Go check out my blog for some lessons in breaking up masses! :)
So glad you wrote about this...it's really instructive, and timely (for me anyway!).
So very strong with the few masses you have in this one! The light key is dead-on, too.

loriann signori said...

Thanks Karen! I'll check out your blog. Have you read Hensche's book? Good stuff! Getting the masses is so important....still it is so easy to get caught in the small attractive pieces.
Happy painting,
Loriann

Karen said...

I have the Hensche book floating around the house right now...it is wonderful, I agree. I must get to more thoroughly...as the big masses are eluding me at the moment!