As an art student, I wasn't always excited about making still life paintings. We did several of them in school, but I didn't feel compelled to make any more after I graduated.
Lately though, I am appreciating the wisdom in regularly practicing this style of art work.
I recently set up a simple still life of two Bosc pears, my goal was to practice blocking in color more efficiently.
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| "The Kiss" |
In support of this goal, I decided to make a drawing from my photo in digital form on my computer to pre-block out the colors. I thought this would make them easier to see and help me make better color value decisions.
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| "Digital Kiss" |
Everything was going smoothly, the 8x10 drawing and complementary color under painting came together nicely and I thought once I had those dark and light values in place, I could just charge ahead with the final color. Imagine my surprise when I suddenly felt stuck!
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| "Complementary Kiss" |
My color blocking plan had been too successful, I could see so many colors in the shadows of my digital sketch that I wasn't certain how to mix them to get all those subtle shifts!
I usually only use a limited palette to mix my colors so that the painting feels cohesive.
The
bright oranges, yellows and greens where the sunlight was hitting the
objects were not a problem, I wasn't
certain how to mix that wide range of browns that varied from tones of
green, deep orange to red violet from a limited palette.
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| "Digital Kiss" it's all in the details. |
Mixing colors is usually the part of painting I love the most, it was weird to feel so stuck.
So before putting another brushstroke on my still life, I went to my tried and true anxiety calming back-up, testing out color mixes in my sketchbook.
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| Anxiety reliever. |
Six hours of mixing and painting later, I finally had some answers.
My great light-bulb moment came when I finally figured out how to mix a wonderful range of related of browns by adding a little blue to cadmium red light or cadmium orange.
I was surprised that even using different blues still increased the color range without looking out of place.
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| Hearts and stars marking my favorite mixes. |
That little 2.75 x 3.50 inch color study took so much work, but I feel like I can paint the larger 8x10 with a lot more confidence now, since I've mapped out how the color temperature and value changes as it wraps around the pears and across the plate.
Painting such a subtle shift in colors in the shadows added so much interest and richness, I really loved the effect. I know I will be thinking more about what is going on in the shadows of the next paintings I make.
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| "Little Kiss" |
Here's to the wisdom of going back to practice the basics.
Happy Creating!
>^-^< Tina
1 comment:
TINA! Your intense studies and "tried and true" practices are truly amazing! You push through the boundaries of "art" right down to the science and math of your painting. Just as in composing music, there are underlying rules that deepen the the roots of truly great paintings as well as in music. Your ability to verbalize what is going on is yet another strength of yours, Tina. This makes yet another inroad to the heart and soul of your exercises and, ultimately, your finished piece of art and especially in rhis forum, your ability to teach!
Once again, just reading through your tutorial makes me wish I could one day
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