I really wasn't ready to post yesterday's blog, must have hit the wrong key, but thought I was saving it to work on later.
I was talking about different things that motivate me as an artists. It's one of those strange feelings when you just know you have to portray your thoughts, and colors. I go to my studio, put on my music and get lost in my own little world. I like my world, it's comforting, quite and full of pictures floating in my mind, it's just me, and that's nice.
After you decide what you think you want to paint, the next thought is, what size, is it oil, or is it watercolor? It's wonderful to have choices, but does complicate things. Frequently I do the same painting in both medias and marvel at the difference.
Because I have such a vivid imagination, often a painting is only half finished before my mind is on to the next one, interest is lost and I move on to the next thing. After working for a few hours or days, it's back to the first painting and new interest and thus completing it. I make it a rule never to work over two hours on one subject. It causes me to lose perspective, and get tired, so it's time for a break. My favorite break is a candy bar. Used to drink gallons of coffee, but because of a bad heart have had to put a stop to that. Actually I really didn't drink that much as I'd sip on it, go pull out a photograph, sketch, set of colors and get involved with something else. Guess you might say that my personality would be TYPE A.
If you will go to etsy, joellenart, you will see a selection of my work. Just put one of poinsettas on today. It's quite large 30"x40". I bought three different colors of plants and decided to put them all together in a dramatic way instead of common still life with vases etc. Well, this painting gave me fits, it just didn't look like it had any energy, or got a person involved in it. The painting was put in time out, faced the wall for three or four months.Finally one day my husband brought it to the studio and looked perplexed asking "what's the problem?" It sat in the studio for a few weeks, my seeing it every day. One morning as I woke up, the completed painting popped into my mind, and I knew instantly what to do. The answer...use a pallett knife on the background and remove that tight conservative look around the flowers, and be free with color. What fun that was! I put Elvis on, sang with him to the top of my voice and painted like crazy with a pallett knife, applying thick heavy color, getting another color and blending, mixing, working away. I felt like a dancer, moving from colors to painting and stepping back to admire or critize what I'd just done and bringing my arms up and down in very definite ways hitting the canvas with a heavy stroke, or gently caressing and blending edges. One thing with oil paint is nothing happens unless you cause it to. Every stroke is your thought, your movement causes it.
With watercolor, things just happen sometimes, the paint flows and mingles causing backwash, or beautiful blending. One of my adult strudents who has been with me for three years now and works in both medias finally came to the conclusion that she likes watercolor. She says painting with oil is like pushing mud around. It can certainly look like mud if you don't study your color theory, and techniques.
Speaking of color theory, let me tell you this little story. My first painting with a teacher was Mt. Ranier and reflection lake. It took me four months to do a simple 16x20, studying 3 hours a week. My teacher kept saying "JoEllen, add red to your green." The thing is she never told me why, or how much, or what it was suppose to do to the beautiful trees. My trees weren't beautiful, but I was quite certain I'd never seen red in the evergreen trees of Wash. Finally one day she sat with me (I think she was totally tired of me!) explained the color wheel, complimentary colors, etc., and all of a sudden I was on a roll. What beautiful trees. You didn't need viridian green, or green earth, or whatever green you bought. You simply needed the primary colors, red, blue, yellow and white. Of course 35 years later, I'm back to tubed colors as it's easier.
When I teach, it's hard to make a student do a color wheel, or color studies. Adults simply don't want to take the time. That's a mistake, and a big one! If you're studying art, get a book on color theory and work everything they say do. If you want to study lessons from me, let me know. I'll be glad help you. I still do a lot of color studies and have a notebook full of different studies of primary colors. Painting is relaxing and fun but you must learn the basics, learn your trade. It's like being a good cook, you must learn the recipes. At one time I would get paint chip cards from the hardware store, give each person a few and have them make a chart of what it took to make that color. They actually learned to enjoy those sessions. They always looked at each others colors, and got into heavy discussions about them.
Today is my studio time and I'm completing a painting taken from a vacation photo several years back, and only recently deciding to paint it. Because I've been to busy to paint for a month, I'll start with painting a couple of apples. I try to do a few a week. They look simple, but getting roundness, depth, lost and found lines and interesting brushstroke, backgrounds and colors, it's not all that easy. I tell my students to do one a week, but they don't. At least they don't have to put eyes, ears, etc in the right place, plus acquire all the other things. Everyone wants to paint a portrait!
Have a great day, let me hear from you. Tell me how you go about painting, and why.
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