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| 9x10 pastel on somerset |
The fact is, anyone can learn the guidelines of painting/drawing and create a good picture. It's true. That just takes time and study. Now, the process of actually creating a feeling of beauty, a picture that draws you in and never lets you go ....that is what we really want to do. After my rant yesterday about the use and misuse of photos I though more about why I paint and why I had to rant on about photos. I yearn to capture the beauty, the beauty that is beyond words and closer to poetry. Copying feels like an insult.
So as I move on to studying reflections I give you today's thought:
Grouping the values into masses is an important part of designing a painting. Once again, less is more. Remember always that creating art is about synthesis, not simply recoding what we see. In nature each view has hundreds of value changes. A picture sings more beautifully when you have less values and your greatest contrast of values is in the focal point. I tried to keep this drawing to 4 basic values and to stay on the middlish range of the value scale.Basically-5, 6,7 with a punch of 1.
My goal was to sing light on a river morning.
My years of constant plein air painting informed me of what I see and my creative soul drew it. A photo reference was used in the beginning stages.
9 comments:
These values are working beautifully, Loriann! I can tell a creative soul produced this work. I just read your rant on photos and all the responses. Just what I needed to hear - thanks! Keep healing ...
Loriann, this one is full of mystery and poetry. I agree about photos, they just record the placement of objects and the masses, that's about it for me.
Thanks Donna! My healing keeps going on I am happy to see things moving forward. Glad you liked my rant.
Hi Nika, Thank you.You are right that's all they do.... we are on the same page!
Hi Loriann, to be honest I didn't enjoy the sky painting course with Debs I thought I would but it was hard. There was no inspiration no music or light just dry study and observation. Each morning I would wake up and want only to do my inspiration journey paintings full of life and colour, play my music and connect with it all. Yet after the course had finished I started to understand that I had actually learned a great deal and now I can add the magic and inspiration to that knowledge. I didn't feel this way with the previous courses maybe I have changed within. I am so pleased to read that you are feeling more positive about the study now Loriann.
B, you take so little and
express so much!
Fortunate timing as
I begin to paint!
pb
Loriann, I just wanted to add that Deborah's classes are first class there is so much support, help and heaps of incredible information for each of us to learn. I believe my way of seeing things is changing. Your value drawing is really lovely, I like the light areas very much.
great work!!!!
Hi Caroline, It's not the study I was feeling unexcited about...it was the use of photos. Since i can't go out and about I have to use photos to do this study...that is my frustration and that is what I am going to have to learn to work around. I think it touched upon two tender points:my mobility frustration and my frustration in general about art that looks like a photographs. I am over it...little things like this seem unimportant in the whole realm of life.
PS Thank you about the value drawing!
Hi PB...Begin to paint!! are you painting and posting again...I must go check!
Hi Mahesh and thank you!
This one sings very nicely, Loriann. Beautifully composed and with a wondeful sense of light.
I would guess that you took what little you needed as reference from the photo for this study and then went from there, making it into your own expressive poetry. With all of your experience in working outdoors and now from memory, that's about all that your photo references are really useful for. Drawing upon them for what they can provide while being very much aware of the limitations inherent in photos is a useful balance to strike - especially when working outdoors is not possible. I find that at the end of the day my biggest hindrances are always my own - whether working direct from nature, from my own sketches, or from photos - it doesn't matter. When doing one of the drawings for this first assignment, for example, I wrestled with it for a long time before realizing that I was stuck on the idea that the water should be lighter in value than the grass around it - certainly, it had been in the previous studies I did. Once I got beyond this mental block and recognized that the water for this particular study needed to be substantially darker than the grass, it felt like things came together. Getting beyond these observational/perception issues is a constant challenge, regardless of whether I'm working from nature or a photo.
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