Changing at will

-
I am just starting to see how I can change the colors of what I see. It can make for a more interesting interpretation. Just as a writer, in the beginning, writes about herself because that is what she knows best, and cannot yet make up fiction, so an artist paints what she sees - almost exactly. She doesn't know how to correct the composition, change colors, improve what is in front of her. That transition happens slowly. When I started as a writer, I wrote about incidents in my life. When I was first able to write a short story I had made up entirely, it was a big moment. So, now, I feel I have progressed when I move shapes around to better the composition, change the colors - see beyond what is in front of me. Even cropping a wide expanse of inspiration to what will make a good painting - is progress.

Even in front of nature, one must compose.
EDGAR DEGAS
I saw this building in Sunnyvale last night and it looked wonderful. I found a daytime image of it today and did this. I should try a nighttime version too. I'm intrigued at what happens to the shadows at night - I can imagine blues, purples, and the glow of light in a complementary orange.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connected shadows

-
Image
I have often passed by the Campbell Community Center/Heritage Theater and been struck by the beautiful Spanish Colonial Revival architecture with intricate ornamentation. Finally, I had the opportunity to paint it today with the SCVWS Thursday plein air group. I think I should have used a ruler for this as some of my verticals aren't parallel to the edge of the paper! I do like the purple/blue shadows and how the colored shadows blend into one another around all the bright white areas. As always, for me, greens are troublesome - they often look overworked in my paintings. But, I am pleased with this overall.                       “One Ticket, Please”
Read more

Faith vs. belief, and inspiration

-
Image
In yesterday's Gita session, we discussed the difference between belief and faith. I found myself saying that a belief was hard-edged and inflexible, and faith all-encompassing and flexible and always positive - akin to having a big-picture trust in the cosmos. When I heard myself say "hard-edged," it made me realize how many terms and ideas are so interchangeable between the world of watercolor (art) and spirituality (life). When edges are hard, the eye stops at each edge before it goes to the next "item." It's like stop-and-go traffic. You are making progress but it is not smooth, not a flow. When edges are soft, your eyes travel easily, from one object to the next because the divisions between the objects are blurred, and the values do the talking. It is like life, like consciousness. We are all one - not so hard-edged and separate - yet we don't know it, and bump up against one another because of our hard edges, fixed ideas and notions, prejudices an
Read more

Design- vs. content-driven

-
Image
I've found that strong design-driven art is more attractive to me than content-driven paintings. Of course, the content or subject is there (unless it is truly non-representational work), but it is realized and recognized a split second after one has responded to the design. For this reason, subjects that lend themselves to being more easily abstracted - interiors, close-ups of anything, still life cropped just so - are more appealing than standard impressionistic distant landscapes where the shapes themselves tell you sky-earth-mountains-lake. A landscape can also be abstracted but I feel there is more effort in hiding or veiling landscape features for the slow reveal to happen. I've been working on this still life, and just starting with a notan helped me understand and crop shapes right away. Pushing some of the lighter shapes to the white of the paper helps with abstraction. Like a chess board where each shape is bordered by a contrasting value shape, or the way we typicall
Read more