February 29, 2010

Happy Leap Day! What are the odds it would fall on one of our class days? Not to waste the opportunity, we launched into one of our "art question" discussions  and we'll be sharing some of our insights throughout the blog. Here, for instance Elaine T. offers a prime example of How to Start A Painting/Next Steps. She was inspired by seascapes of a 19th century artist, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky. Determined to figure out how he did it, Elaine began a few studies with various brushes, various colors—just a series of studies with no goal other than to figure things out. Keep watching what she does. From small studies, mighty paintings grow.

Elaine O. is another fierce proponent of doing studies. She did this rough sketch in a cheap sketchbook with one goal—to figure out how to blend between two strong complementary colors without leaving an ugly gray demarcation zone. Mission accomplished.

Ken is the poster child for another of our suggestions—come up with a simple routine. Ken paints every day at the same time and regularly works in series. As a result, he's finished this large painting from his Julia Cameron series. 

Habte finished this floral painting. It's a view into a room. We can see the space divided up into inside/outside and the layers as we peer beyond shrubbery, past a planter and through gauzy curtains. This is a thoughtfully planned composition.

Here's another beautifully composed painting by Habte. (Did we mention that we considered strong composition to be one of the top 5 elements of a good painting?) This is colorful and densely textured, with every inch complementing every other inch and revealing new things to see.

Sara is a huge proponent of sketching, and she's very good at it, too. This year, she's upping her game and going for ultra-realism. Below, for instance are sketches in pencil of folded/creased pieces of paper (these are NOT the actual papers!)

Incredible, isn't it?

From there, Sara tried to achieve the same results in a different medium and tried in watercolor. It's crumpled paper, not creased, but this is an excellent value study, isn't it?

Tom is another avid sketcher. He began the "Fabric" exercise with a pencil sketch....

...before moving to paint. We love it and can see how a preliminary sketch works to acquaint the artist with the subject.

Berivan's delicate nature painting features a luminous sky and grassheads that seem to move in the wind. The color choices are superb and the eye and horn of the subject lead us to discover more every time we look.

Nadia did the fabled Three-Way Fruit exercise, but with bands of color. Left to right are wet-in-wet, drybrush and a combination. Her favorites are the extremes, particularly the wet-in-wet version...

...which lead her to paint a cloisonne-like lamp surface, then try it again, wet-in-wet. 

Finally, Nadia finished painting the collage she created in the first week. The colors on this are spectacularly subtle and cohesive. And she's captured the layers of a collage.

We're off for the next two weeks, but we'll be back on March 21. One more key takeaway from today's discussion is this: Use the Good Stuff! You're Not Wasting Anything. So we'll be back with our good paper (the stuff we've been saving for when we're more accomplished) and our best artist-quality paint. See you then!