One More Winter Day

I wish I had kept a step-by-step record of this painting.  It began as three birds searching for seeds in the snow.  At the end of the first session, the other two birds had to go:  their presence made the painting seem trite, but taking them away left the remaining bird sitting almost in the middle of the painting.  In fact, the right edge of the bird splits the composition in half--sorta. 

Yet I liked how I'd done the bird, so I set out to find a way to make the composition work by guiding the viewer's eye by using accents of warm light within areas of cool.

We use isolation to bring attention to a subject or to lead the eye to a place we want it to go.  The bird image in this painting is about as isolated as you can get:  its size, its contrast, its gesture all give emphasis to the isolation and by doing so, make the eye cling to the image itself.  I needed to make the eye roam around so that the viewer could register the cold of the snow and the subtle colors in it even though we call it white.

For two days the bird's surroundings morphed.  What began as a snow-covered field became woods in the background that went through many adjustments and deletes until finally there was nothing left to do and that's how you know when a painting is finished.

In this picture, I photoshopped a frame around it to help isolate the painting itself.  This painting needs the frame to be complete.  So what does that tell me?   I'll answer that:  it tells me there's still so much to learn...

Enjoy your Saturday.
Dianne

Fourth Moth Painting: Ready to Go

It is important that I'm able to clearly distinguish edges when first applying watercolor paint.  The water tends to dissolve pencil lines so that if they are not dark enough before beginning to paint, one can easily lose the intended image.  The direction of lines in this painting are crucial because they all vanish to where the left wing connects the moth's body, so this morning I spent considerable time and effort refining the drawing and darkening edges.

 

I'm satisfied with the preliminary drawing now.  The painting process is ready to begin.

Enjoy your Tuesday,

Dianne

Prep Work for New Painting

I bet some of you saw this coming:  I've always been fascinated with the golden section and Fibonacci numbers and all the mysteries implied in both.  This painting feels like one calling for working within the golden section principle.

I'm not one to do a lot of mathematical or scientific calculation;  it's not the math that fascinates me, but the patterns math discovers and how they continue to repeat themselves in nature.

To avoid mathematical calculation, one way to easily set up for a golden section pattern is the rule of thirds, meaning the painting gets set up by placing the image within divisions of thirds.   Here I sectioned my watercolor paper into a grid of thirds, nine blocks.

Grid placed on watercolor paper    20" x 28"

At the intersection of each vertical and horizontal line is the most visually pleasing area of the shape, very close to the golden section.  I notice in the vantage point of my photo reference that all major lines vanish where the left wing connects the moth's body.  I chose this as my center of interest, placing it at the upper left intersection.  By placing a corresponding grid over the computer monitor, I can easily see how the placement of the moth will fit into the entire page.  

Using this as my point of departure, I did a quick gesture drawing to set up the preliminary drawing on the paper.

Gesture drawing placing preliminary image on the paper.     

That's where I am right now.   Enjoy your Sunday.
Dianne   

Studies for Moth Four

Here is my work from yesterday.

It's All In How We Allow Ourselves To See

You already know that every morning when it's not raining, I take my portable painting gear out to the deck and do little studies of our woods.  You'd think I'd grow tired of this:  same trees, same foliage, same time of day.  But not once has it failed to be a new experience, something new discovered about the light, about the temperature of the colors, and my painting process.

I know artists who think once you've painted a thing, it's time to move onto something else. They seem to think that the subject is a prop of some kind, giving them material to paint, but not inherently important.  I don't agree at all:  I think the subject is ours to discover, that it is within that process of discovery that we find ourselves, that we can come upon an infinite array of the universe's mysteries and uncover our relationship to them.

It's the open-endedness that continues to be intriguing.  The more we learn, the more we realize there's so much more to be learned.

Have a wonderful Friday.
Dianne

A Hero

I've always liked Richard Schmid.  Richard was the luckiest among us boomers-turned-artists--lucky, because he lived in a town where a painter could actually develop ones craft.  Growing up in Chicago, when a teenager he studied with a real plein air painter (decades before plein air became la chose à faire), and later, at the American Academy of Art.  Another way to say it is that during his formative years, rather than have his head stuffed with avant-garde clap trap, Richard got the skills and knowledge to enable him to grow into a painter whose unique individuality could evolve.

But what makes Richard special, what keeps bringing me back to his work is its essence--every painting being more than itself, every subject translated with marriage of mastery of skill and fullness of spirit.

Rebellion

I remember my early days as an art student in the sixties when artists, critics and historians no longer valued art accessible to the person on the street.  In fact, an art student whose painting showed any signs of realism was scoffed at.   Our predecessors and our heroes had broken through the realistic image, fragmented it and cast it aside as an interference in the creative process.  Drawing and painting students were commanded to be inventive without being descriptive.   So what were they teaching us?

Rebellion breeds more rebellion.  Decades before us artists had rebelled against academic training, against the academies that shut them out when their work failed to follow criteria of those in control of exhibitions, of the public's attitude.  And just like today, public attitude reinforced whatever trend had been settled on as progress.  Artists who rebelled against those attitudes formed their own followings, sometimes strong enough for mainstream critics to morph their standards to fit into whatever they saw as the new art direction.

So without knowing it in the sixties--the era of rebellion--our art schools were, by default, teaching us to rebel.  A few of us unhappy with how we had been taught to think slowly--over the decades to follow-- took our rebellion as our mission and found ways to train ourselves in techniques and composition and an appreciation for what our eyes see. 

Enjoy your Tuesday.
Dianne

As In Another Language

It's an exhilarating thing to think about how we translate what we see as in another language. Each artist speaks with a unique voice, a unique history of experiences, a unique genetic make-up, all translated through a chosen medium into a presentation.  Then the language gets perceived by an audience of individuals, each with unique experiences and genetic stuff and what comes of it all is response.

The artist becomes a sort of filter through which images and ideas pass as they are being translated into a work.  So if each artist is responding uniquely, how can a painting be a cliché?

Have a happy Friday.
Dianne

Keeping Confidence

When I get wobbly toward a subject begging to be included in a painting, my best bet is to spend some time with it, to get familiar with it.  Since the horse stumped me (described in the previous post) I've begun some quick studies from some photos I took that day. 

Here's a sample:

These are my notes to myself.  They are not meant to be seen, certainly not displayed; rather, they are a way to inform my hand about what my eye is seeing, to search out the spirit of the subject, to gain a familiarity with it.  That way I don't approach the subject half-cocked, and risk getting doubtful about what I'm doing.

It's all about paying attention.

Have a terrific Thursday,
Dianne

Quiddity

In writing and in talking, Howard often used the word "quiddity."  For years I have used the word "essence" in the same spirit, but I'm beginning to prefer "quiddity" because the word encompasses the intrinsic, inherent and fundamental nature of its referent.

There is the quiddity of the subject and the quiddity of the artist.  The marriage of the two make the art work.  And that includes a lot of stuff going on.

I spend hours sitting on my deck, surrounded by our woods.  When it's not overcast in the mornings and late afternoons, I witness the most incredible light show as the sun bathes and dances over tree trunks, earth and foliage.  And no matter how many times I attend this production, it always leaves me in a sense of awe.  Sometimes I zoom in on a piece of it and draw.

Quiddity...

Have a lovely Tuesday.
Dianne