Artistic Harmonies Blog
Over the past couple weeks, months really, I’ve been thinking about two things. One is the start of a painting and the second is the color harmony of the painting. Over the past year, I’ve been actually working on better control over the values in my painting, forcing me to think of temperature and color changes for expression. Making a Good Start Let’s start first with the start of the painting. I recently purchased “Still Life Live”, a 4 DVD set of demos (3 discs) and critiques (1 disc) by Joe Anna Arnett. On this dvd set, Joe talks about starting the painting loosely and then reigning in on the painting as you work on it. The focus is on the placement of the items in the composition and not so much on actually drawing each object. I need to note here that you need to still have drawing skills and put in the time drawing to really accomplish the final beautiful painting with all the proportions correct. This is just one way to start and it is very helpful making the transition from drawing each object and then staying in the paint by number lines. Such a free experience to see this. (click here to see a trailer of Joe Anna’s dvd set and order it…) With that in mind, I decided to start my paintings a new way. I wanted to control my values and I wanted to focus on my drawing. I wanted it to be right before I started painting, having it totally figured out before I put that first color note on my canvas. Here is a rather wonderful grey scale painting that I did and will be the focus of this blog/lesson. This is Spock. He is my little kitty (one of them and the bigger of the two–weighing 15 lbs and when he stretches up to let me know he is around (if I’m standing I’m about 5 ft. 7 3/4 inches tall) his front paws hit almost to the top of my hips!). Notice that I’ve basically worked out my values and have worked out all of my drawing issues in this sketch. This particular sketch, because I wanted to capture his attention gesture, took me a long while to get to this point. But it was worth every minute! Next was the mixing of colors and painting the painting. Here is the first version of this painting. It is a 16 x 20 oil on canvasboard. Notice the gesture of his attention. The drawing is very good and the colors on the cat are wonderful! The problem is, the background color. It is fighting for the attention. Spock is the star of this painting and the background, while nice color harmony, shouldn’t be fighting for my attention/competing with the cat. So the question becomes, what should that background be to make people be drawn to this painting saying..”Wow–look at the cat!”. “Come Play With Me!” 16X20 Oil on Canvas Try This Exercise With many thanks to one of my mentors, Joe Anna Arnett, for her suggestion of this exercise to determine which background will make the cat pop off the canvas and beckon to the viewers. Take old scrap canvases or some small study canvases and using the colors of the dominant figure in your composition, paint them on the canvas. Don’t worry about each little detail and you can really just paint squares, triangles, cubes, spheres–whatever you need to do to get the colors in the approximate place. Moreover, what is most important is the actual colors in the approximate placement on the canvas. When you have the colors in place, work on your foreground and background colors. Test which ones you like better. For example, I did 3 quick (did not take me more than 20 minutes to do these) tests with 3 distinct colors for the background. So let’s take a look! Test 1 This test I went with a warmer beige color in the background. To me, it is still competing and is too warm. I quickly eliminated this one from consideration. It just doesn’t work. Test 2 The background on this is a blue grey and is still in contention. I wasn’t convinced that this was the winner yet, so I went on to test number 3. Test 3 After I finished with this exercise I was in such a mood to paint and was having such fun just throwing paint around that I decided to do the grey scale of my next kitty painting. This one is of Tigger Bear from a study I did previously. What I love with this new process is that I am doing it all with a brush and paper towel in my hand….no pencil. I tend to fight drawing, maybe a mental block, but put a brush in my hand and grey paint on my palette and I’ll work and work to get that drawing correct. I enjoy it so much more than eraser and pencil in a sketch book. Give these two methods a try and see how you feel about them. Here’s My Tigger Bear… After just returning form the Art in the Carolinas and the Rembrandt in America exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of Art, I so excited to be able to see another Master of art, Norman Rockwell. What a way to end a year focused on improving my art knowledge, skill and understanding that to be able to attend in person two great shows! A few years ago, I blessed with a birthday present from Kevin Macpherson and Christopher Magadini. We were in New York City and Kevin asked what I wanted for my birthday. I told him that I wanted an escorted trip through the Impressionist are of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He agreed and then said that he thought Chris would be a great addition too! Two Master artists escorting me and talking to me about past masters art….Now that’s a present I’ll never forget!! I’ll also never forget how much more I appreciated the artist’s work. Even artists who before this trip I wouldn’t give a second look too suddenly became a bit more familiar with the understanding provided by trained and artistic eyes. That conversation between Kevin and Chris on–pick a painting-was so interesting and although at first I felt intimidated to add to it, after I made an observation overlooked by them on one painting, I was invited to share and speak up. We spent hours in that museum and after a while others began to follow us trying to listen into our conversation and wondering what we were doing with this piece of transparent slide with one single straight line across the top. They watched us as we turned that same square a number of different ways in the painting and discussed our findings. I bet it was a scene that Rockwell would have laughed at and painted. I plan on attending the Rockwell exhibit at the Dayton Art Institute and studying his fine work. His use of color and shapes is one area I intend on studying in this paintings. Of course there are his drawing skills and use of line to look over as well. There is also so much more… Want to join me? I don’t mind taking anyone through the exhibit so that you can get a little more in depth and personal with one of America’s favorite paintiner/illustrators. Come read the Saturday Evening Post with me and learn a little more about Norman Rockwell. Here’s the write up at the DAI’s website: Dayton Art Institute–American Chronicles: If you are interested in joining me, either leave a comment below or drop me an email by filling out the contact me form on the site. Looking forward to exploring the world of Norman Rockwell. Happy Holidays!
This quick study is speaking to me. I’m liking the green/grey background and it is different enough from the grey below that it begins to provide a 3rd plane in the painting. When it is all said and done, I will probably choose this color for the background. It may vary a little in value, but it the basic color that attracts my eye. For now though, I will put all of the paintings aside and not look at them for 3 or 4 days. Then with a fresh eye, I will look at all 3 of these again. The final decision will be made at that point and then I will change the background on Come Play With Me!
