Hello Million Friends,
A few days ago I painted with a group of people in Hanscom Park. The painting that I have posted today is the finished version of what I started. I completely changed the composition because it wasn’t working and used some of the Gamblin Brilliant colors mixed with my usual palette.
I’ve noticed that some of the artists have a step by step method. Well…..I do too, it starts out as Realism and ends up as Expressionism.
There was a nine year old girl with us and she asked “what do you like to paint?”. “My emotions”, I responded, and she looked very puzzled and wanted me to explain. So I tried, but I’m not sure she understood. From the looks of her painting she was more of a Realist, and a very good one at that!
If you’re interested in this painting click here to bid on EBay.
Pray for peace,
Chris
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Chris,
I thought about ’steps’ and I guess to a degree I do go through steps. More frequently than not I just have at it. I seem to have aversion to ‘you must do it this way.’ I even found that feeling when I was in school. They used to tell us the background behind a subject you do at the end. My problem with that is I frequently need to do the background first to properly light/figure out the foreground.
Although- I’m very specific on how I position paint on my palette. My black and white must be in the back out of the way and array of mixing colors in a certain order. For instance browns and yellows next to each other, blues and greens.
Yes- I’m too weird for words.
Vikki
what happened to the other one?
Vikki,
It’s good to just go for it, I’ve never heard of painting the background in last anyway. We can’t help it if we weren’t born to follow the rules.
Chris
Growth Stock,
by the “other” one, do you mean the jpg of the painting that was there this morning? I took another photo of it because my camera setting was wrong last night and it looked fuzzy and dull. Also enlarged it. Looks better now don’t you think? Or did you like the fuzzy look?\
Chris
Chris
Hi Chris, I’ll try not to go on and on, but you bring up a good topic about individual methods and so-called rules. Vikki, who is the “they” that told you to save the background until last? I try avoid using the word ‘wrong’ in Art matters, but I totally disagree with them.
You can usually tell when someone has painted the main subject first and left the background out until last – it’s not as cohesive, it’s off-balance, and looks Beginnerist!
Whether you’re Expressionist or Realist… or Rebellious-ist, the finished piece still needs to FEEL right in order to be understood. This isn’t the kind of rule that would try to tell you to not be who you are; this is a rule about what works and what doesn’t, period.
Working too closely or too much in one area with less attention to the rest, the flow of the composition is not going to LOOK balanced or FEEL balanced. Until the last few moments of finishing, we need to know that anything can happen, and things somewhere may need to be changed. All needs to progress as a whole, and we’re less willing to change things that need it if a lot of time and energy has been invested in one area only, like the foreground for example.
Expressionist/Abstract suits you Chris, because there are less rules to conform to, and you’ve gotta paint your own unique way or it won’t work either…but that one “rule” applies to every single Artist. That was not good advice to give Vikki..but obviously she didn’t listen because her work is awesome.
It’ll be interesting to hear other painters’ points of view about methods and rules vs expression and how/if they need to work together.
P.S. That was written with no offense against beginners at all, because the goal for all of us whether beginner, intermediate or professional is that we want our work to NOT look beginnerish, don’t you think? Leaving anything unconsidered until the end is a sure way to an unbalanced piece of work, that’s what I meant. That’s my experience, and I don’t mind hearing I’m wrong as far as how someone else works!
Great post. Sometimes it’s great to follow advice and techniques from someone who’s been there, otherwise it’s like re-inventing the wheel. Other times, it makes sense to tweek or even disregard advice. It takes common sense and an idea of what works for you. Thanks for dropping by my blog. I’ve really enjoyed reading through yours and looking at your artwork. Very nice.
Hi Chris – Thanks for visting my blog a few weeks ago and for leaving such a nice comment. I’ve really enjoyed looking through your gallery – I especially liked the Linden Estates Walk landscape and Snoop the dog.
I can really relate to what you say here about liking to paint your emotions. I recently took a course in therapeutic art, which was fun: no experience needed, just bring your emotions! I drew lots of swirly lines. It was like being back in kindergarten – before they told me I couldn’t paint…
Keep up the excellent work!
love and light – Simon