Play

Play has a bad reputation. It is seen as a waste of time. It is not. Play is a vital and necessary part of any intelligent creature’s life. The higher the intelligence the more important play is.

Pumpkin in Coffee

For most intelligent creatures play is an essential part of learning. It is a way of exploring both the limits of our environment and ourselves.

Play is an essential part of art. We need to explore both our media (materials) and our own creativity. Play is how we do it. We need to understand just what the art material can and cannot do, and how to combine them to get the results we want. Most people call this experimentation. And it is. But it does not have to be dull.

Bags of Candy

Take the color chart.



Red



Work, right? Well yes, but that does not mean it cannot be fun. And should be. Doing both color charts and value charts should engage us. They should not be simple chores assigned by an evil task-master (art teacher). These charts should be how we come to understand and love our material.



Yes they are serious learning exercises, but more than that. We need to come to an understanding of just what is color, hue, tone. We need to play with the paints/materials to learn this.

Home Made Color Wheel

Be Careful where you take photos!

New law in Utah might make taking those landscape reference shots difficulthttp://www.myzionpark.com/2012/03/trail-side-photos-including-livestock-and-farms-potentially-illegal-in-utah/#comment-759

Red Pears

Red Pears

Opps, I did it again.

No, not broke your heart, but bought fruit by how it looks, for its color. As subjects for a still life. It just captured my heart.

This week the produce was especially colorful. Maybe it is the fact that winter has finally broke here. The weather is cloudy and rainy but warming up. Things are starting to bloom. 

These absolutely gorgeous red pears, the red/green mangos, the acorn squash with it shiny dark green and a splash of yellow, how could I resist? And those red onions that are really a deep purple? How can you say no to them? And don’t get me started on peppers! More and more the regular grocery store is stocking more than just the green. Now we get the golden yellow and the bright orange.

 

The influence of the Spanish culture is really being felt in peppers. Where once you might only find a few jalapenos, we now have at least 6 different little hot peppers, each with their own fire, and color. It is enough to make an artist go broke! 

But at least once the painting is done you can eat them! 

And Now for Something Different

Not all landscape drawings and paintings need to be totally realistic. Many of the best are far from it. They give only the impression of the landscape. Or the idea or are simply inspired by and area. The idea takes on a life of its own.

In drawing, this is more than true. You are representing a landscape, but of necessity, editing and changing it. With pencils things are reduced to grayscale. With pen and ink, literally black and white, or simply tinted and stylized.

Greenbottom and Lotus Painting as of March 3

  

Painting the misty colors and feel of Greenbottom in mid summer haze it a challenge. I don’t want it to look foggy. It was hazy but hot and wet. So humid just walking through the air left you wet.

I am finally beginning to get some of the color and feel I want. The background was still too vivid and bright. I did paint a thin glaze of red over the background hills, which is beginning to take them down a bit.

 

Most efforts to “gray” them out left them looking rather rainy and cold not at all what is needed here.

The smaller canvas of the lotus is beginning to look like the flower and leaf, with the leaf half under the water.

For such shallow water it was remarkably dark. Totally shaded by the immense field of lotus.

One More Night With Greenbottom

One more night painting on the large canvas of Greenbottom. While it is coming along very well, I think it is time to let it rest a while. It is getting to the point where further work will result in mud. So tomorrow I will not work on either canvas.

Greenbottom Painting at the beginning
of the painting session tonight

This is the painting as it was when I came down stairs to the dungeon tonight. I did not do a lot to it. While the small touches I was adding made sense, I kept working on it, but once I starting looking to things to do and add I knew it was time to let it rest a while.

Should I make it more detailed/realistic or leave it more of an impressionist painting?



Lotus, beginning tonight



Lotus, end of evening



And for the blooming lotus, that too I will let rest. The lotus does need to be brightened, but that can wait. The paint needs to set up a bit more before I can get that glow of the original flower.

The pen and ink drawing can use some more development. I am torn between leaving it simple outlines and working texture into the background. The idea of adding a bit of color ink is inviting too.



Greenbottom, as it stands now.



I want to do at least 2 more drawings and perhaps another painting. Maybe of a lotus that has bloomed and is pushing up the seed cone.

But whatever I decide to do with these paintings, they do need a bit of a rest right now. Tomorrow is class day. I will have classes late, so I will not have time to work on them anyways.

Maybe a few days rest will give my eyes a refresh look at these paintings.

Working on the Greenbottom Project

(Note: Sunday, February 26, 2012)

Watched the academy awards tonight. Did my exercises, all 30 minutes of them. Washed a load of towels and folded did not spindle or mutilate laundry.

Then got out the paint and brushes. Worked for 2 hours trying to get the shades and feelings right on both the detail painting of the water lotus and the larger overview of Greenbottom.

A bit frustrating, but over all, I think it is starting to straighten up.

Speaking of straightening up, I have to adjust my lines of lotus to straighten them up. Water is flat, and they float on the top, At least the bottom edges of each group needs to be fairly level.

Then I will start on bringing on the background, the higher ground in this case. The small rise with the live trees on it, and then add a couple of drowned trees to the mid ground among the lotus plants. I have thought about adding a few birds in the sky, but all in all it sounds a bit hokey.

One of the tools I am loving is a scrapper I got at my fall workshop. Makes correcting mistakes so much easier. No more wiping with paper towels, now the paint lifts off pretty cleanly. It does help that in glazing the paint on the previous layer is fairly well set up. Still, it is nice to be able to correct so quickly and cleanly.

It is so exciting to be making progress on this. The first pen and ink drawing is coming along. Not anywhere finished, but I think shaping up into something that might work.