Daily Painting

In his book "Mastering Color and Design in Watercolor," Christopher Schink says this about the stages of artistic development: As an artist, you go through three basic stages of development. As a beginner, you have the greatest interest in gaining some control of the medium. In other words, just getting the paint to stick to the paper is an overriding concern, and producing a technically competent watercolor is a major achievement. At this stage, whether you have organized the color and design of your painting in an orderly or expressive way is of little importance. Unfortunately, some watercolorists never advance beyond this initial stage but continue to concentrate entirely on developing technical skills. Mistaking virtuosity for substance, they become better and better at saying less and less.  The second stage of artistic development begins when you recognize that control of the medium or even virtuosic technique will not produce an effective or satisfying watercolor. You...

 I've been obsessively watching Ian Roberts' composition lectures and videos on YouTube. It's remarkable that the first time I came across him about 3 or so years ago, I watched a DVD from the library on "Mastering Composition." In it, he talked about the movement of the viewer's eye as it enters a painting, and how contrasts draw the eye around the art. It happens in such a fraction of a second that we don't know what our eye is doing. Yet, he claims, if you understand what the eye is drawn to, you can manipulate the path of that eye by creating contrasts and shapes where you want the eye to be pulled. I was fascinated - but I didn't understand a thing. About six months later, I checked out the DVD again, and watched it again. I could kind of see what he was on about - but I wasn't mature enough as an artist to feel like I had that kind of control. I was barely able to manage the medium!  Now, three years later, I came across his YouTube videos (w...