Painting less
Shirley Trevena says that mindset is a big thing before painting. And she says that planning is important before painting as well. She does color studies, sketches, shape arrangements, and during painting, will pause and do cut-outs of colored paper to hold against her partially-completed painting to see how a particular green might go with what's already on the paper.
I am intrigued by that.
Also, I was startled to come across this fact in various places over the course of a week - that some artists will start two versions of the same painting based on the same initial sketch. While one dries, they will work on the other one - try something different. I don't think it's like reading two books at the same time (which is what occurred to me when I read that).
The third thing that intrigues me right now is coming across (again) Jeanne Dobie's interview in which she says she set herself a challenge to paint only half the paper, and to use the unpainted parts as part of the composition - not to simply leave it incomplete looking.
I think my best paintings are those that have a lot of white in them - and if they aid the composition, all the better.
With that in mind, I took this photo I had taken in Kyoto a year ago, and tried to paint less, rather than more. The notan I thought was very successful and true to the "painting less on the paper" (not painting less in life!). While meditating today, the colors came to me - a sunset orange sky bleeding into the orange details of the temples, and cool neutrals (blue+orange) where needed, and overall a complementary scheme (blue+orange, maybe split complementary with a blue-green in places).
I am intrigued by that.
Also, I was startled to come across this fact in various places over the course of a week - that some artists will start two versions of the same painting based on the same initial sketch. While one dries, they will work on the other one - try something different. I don't think it's like reading two books at the same time (which is what occurred to me when I read that).
The third thing that intrigues me right now is coming across (again) Jeanne Dobie's interview in which she says she set herself a challenge to paint only half the paper, and to use the unpainted parts as part of the composition - not to simply leave it incomplete looking.
I think my best paintings are those that have a lot of white in them - and if they aid the composition, all the better.
With that in mind, I took this photo I had taken in Kyoto a year ago, and tried to paint less, rather than more. The notan I thought was very successful and true to the "painting less on the paper" (not painting less in life!). While meditating today, the colors came to me - a sunset orange sky bleeding into the orange details of the temples, and cool neutrals (blue+orange) where needed, and overall a complementary scheme (blue+orange, maybe split complementary with a blue-green in places).
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