I would like to share my philosophy of my life as art this friday night at the Sebastopol Gallery. I believe it will be an enjoyable evening. All are welcome to come join me.
Sterling
When considering a subject I might paint, I ask myself why I would want to paint it. Does it intrigue me and hold my interest? If the answer is yes on both an intellectual and emotional level, it’s more likely I will paint the scene well and that collectors will be more apt to spend time looking at this piece once I finish it.
The intellectual evaluation is about whether there is an interesting composition in the outdoor scene. A good way to decide on the compositional merits is to make a quick value sketch that will help in laying in the paint, and another method is to develop a series of compositional sketches on the canvas using a blue pastel pencil so the marks can be wiped out and redrawn.
As for weighing the emotional connection to the location, I consider scenes that catch my attention almost like a shinny object appearing within a child’s reach. There is something instinctive and automatic about our fascination with images that have contrast, color, a variety of textures, as well as an appealing form. I look for the part of the scene that calls to me, whether that be a light shimmers off the granite rocks and establishes a contrast between the dark, cool colors in the shadows or distant mountains complementing some jagged rocks. Those rocks might become the main characters in a painting while the distant mountains play a supporting role.
Once I have confirmed that a scene has all the right elements, I consider how to simplify the composition. There is so much information in nature that one has to prioritize what is most important to a good painting. I look for elements in the landscape that will keep the viewer’s eyes circulating through the painting, and I am willing to take artistic license and exaggerate some of those elements because no one is going to know what they will actually looked like but they will notice if their eyes wander off the page because there is a straight line of rocks taking their attention off the painting.
Once I feel confident about the compositional plan, I squint while I’m looking at the subject so I only see the big shapes and the relationships of values, and I adjust those values and the color mixtures based on the plan established in my compositional sketches. I then block in the big shapes on a blank canvas as separated masses using a palette knife loaded with oil color. Initially, the blank white canvas may trick my eyes into thinking that the first layers of paint are too light in value, so I often make a point of dropping those values to make them one to two shades darker. It is much easier to lighten values in a painting that it is to darken everything.
As I’m working, I make a point of stepping back from the canvas to evaluate my progress. If the painting doesn’t match the relationships in the scene, I can spot the problems immediately and correct them. Once I have completed the initial steps, I push the separated painted shapes together with a brush and continue making adjustments until I cover the entire canvas. After this step is completed, I have time to finesse the colors and edit the values.
When I make final judgments about my painting, I consider how I might look at the piece if I were judging it in a painting competition. I remember that when picking award winners, I gravitate to paintings that catch my attention. Those pieces may have a balance of hard to soft edges, saturated colors and grey tones, or any of a number of compositional elements that attract my attention to a dominant location other than the dead center and carry my attention through the painting. Remembering those qualities I value when judging a contest helps me see my own paintings more objectively.
