So this is another exercise from Carol Marine's ArtByte series. I thought painting apples would be challenging but I was up to that challenge. Well - it almost did me in. I'm still tinkering with it. This exercise raised lots of questions. How to actually apply the paint? What kind of brush stroke works? How to keep the paint from sliding all over the place? How to keep the colours from turning muddy? How to minimize the brush stroke effect? How to paint realistic shadows? This was a great challenge - and lots more apples to paint!!
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This was an exercise - paint eight tomatoes, taking no longer than 10 minutes per painting! I had no idea it was so hard. I learned a lot and that's the important part. I want to try again using a proper surface - not the heavy paper I used this time - it was too absorbent and the paint didn't flow. And I needed to do a better set up - the light was poor and it was hard to really see the highlights and shadows. Here they are - it's tough to post work that I am not happy with but this is a journey.
This is another exercise from Carol Marine's book - different colours applied with bold strokes with the focus on seeing what happens at the 'edge". This is particularly important in "all prima" painting - doing a painting in one sitting, working with wet paint throughout the process. With this style of painting, each stroke mixes somewhat with what is underneath and around it. On the left side of the painting below, I went back in and muddied the colour - unintentionally. It's not as fresh as the other areas.
Over the past few days, I have been trying to paint small. Painting is a big enough challenge -brush strokes, colour mixing, composition, etc. Confining myself to a 6" x 6" or 5" x 7" panel is really hard.
On Sunday, I built my new panel holder (a la Carol Marine) - what a great tool for holding those small panels. And then I tried to paint in a looser style. Wow - I was so frustrated I threw up my hands, wiped the panel clean and called it a day. Yesterday, I tried again following one of the exercises in Carols's book (which I highly recommend - Daily Painting). Her instructions were great and I was able to produce the sample in the book. "Daydreaming" - 16"x16", pastel on paper I spent the past two days working on this pastel developed from a newspaper clipping. I loved the dreamy, far away look in her eyes as she gazed out the window. Wistful or content? I couldn't tell but I liked her.
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