That said, Dave married someone whose art seems to be moving ever more decidedly towards abstraction.
He'll have to decide: for better or for worse?
Happy birthday to my best friend in the world!
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| Dave's Afternoon Walk 4x4.75", ink and oil pastels on Aquabee sketchbook paper abstract landscape 2016 [not for sale] |
Studio notes: This painting started with a 15-second ink sketch and came together quickly. In just a few magical minutes I was able to achieve what eluded me for hours and revisions and do-overs two weekends ago.
All mysterious. All wonderful.
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| preliminary sketch |
11 comments:
I love Rainy Day, Dotty! Beautiful colors. And Dave. What a lucky man he is. He gets to see the creations of that mind of yours all the time! Wonderful sketch and birthday present. Our last class exercise was with neutrals and how to use them. A good one! But mainly, like your sketch, I always encourage starting with SHAPES (esp the big ones). And thumbnails, and composition. Very nice, Dotty!
Thanks so much for your feedback, Laurie. Truth to tell, I so rarely start with shapes or thumbnails, and composition is a vague notion inside my mind, at best. I appreciate your reminders above! Your mention of neutrals is timely, too, as I just in the past few days been giving them more attention (in my mind, if not always in my paintings!). Can never get too many heads-ups about what goes into successful painting.
A short while after going to work, Dave sent me an email attaching a photo of Monet's The Rose Walk—he was impressed and delighted that my painting was so much like that of such an accomplished esteemed artist!
Love your painting for Dave and his delight in it. :-)
Love the colors mixing loosely, the rough edges and yellow outside the lines. Love the story of your art and the joy it brings :)
Thanks, Joje. It was a fun one to paint.
Sheila, what fun to read your comments. We are totally on the same page: yes to colors mixing loosely, yes to rough edges, yes to colors outside the lines (especially enjoyed that you took delight in that, as I did)! Grateful your appreciation of the story and your recognition of the joy my art brings.
Nice compliment indeed!! As far as neutrals, an exercise we did was where we laid out a palette with just the 3 primaries and white. I had previously explained how colors lean, but this was just with any old red, blue, and yellow. We mixed compliments together, the 3 primaries together (getting the same results), and on and on adding white in various ratios. Every time we mixed a new pile, we put a brushstroke of that neutral on a separate paper, and started to line those (beautiful!) neutrals in rows. But I left one spot open. As we progressed, we all had wonderful different colors and values of neutrals. Then I took cad red out of the tube for the remaining spot. ZING!! An exaggerated look at how the neutrals help that focal point sing! One ambitious girl did a whole 8x10 painting with her neutrals instead of the blocks of color. Try a painting with beautiful neutrals and a spot of pure color some time. It's fun!
P.S. Credit goes to Mark Mehaffey for that exercise. We did it at his workshop!
Laurie, thanks for sharing the exercise above. Love it! Can't wait to give it a try! And thanks to Mark Mehaffey and his introducing the exercise to you at his workshop.
Hi Dotty,
Happy Birthday, Ron!
This painting looks really wonderful. And you can taste the ease and fun that you had while painting! I love the orange and the turquoise, they make each other jump!
Simone, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm glad you could taste the ease and fun I had while painting. Also helpful to get your feedback re colors, especially since I know you are studying color right now.
[My husband's name is Dave!]
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