" Del Monte Summer"
oil on stretched canvase, 16" x 20"
Yesterday, I began a painting full of lots of stuff which needed to be knoodled before I could post the final version. So, today's painting is knoodling yesterday's . . . if that makes sense.
Of the things I was determined to practice in this piece was, of course, more edge management, keeping things fresh and suggested and, finally, use my palette knife in places . . . do some line drawing with it, define a few edges and create a teeensy bit of texture. Lastly, to focus on my brushwork . . .show some looseness and let the brush do the talking.
After watching Matt Smith, yesterday, and carefully observing what he did to load the knife, it was actally fairly easy. I gotta admit I would have stumbled around for years and never come up with a good clean stroke with it had I not seen how he did it. Nice!! It is pretty easy, however, to get carried away with it, so I practised on an old painting until I was sick of doing it and felt comfortable making the thing do its dance across the canvas.
The next thing was edges. I learned that edges aren't necessarily **Blended** to appear blurry. That is what I thought a soft edge meant. Edges can be ragged . . .as in the edges of foliage. They can be extremely sharp as in a corner of a building where there isn't a gradual slope into a darker value or edges can be transitions of value from dark, to medium to medium light to light as when a tree trunk rolls from the light into a darker, shadow side. So, internal edges matter, too . . . .from one color or value to another inside shape of a different color or value . . .and not necessarily blended from one to the other. See why I was having difficulty in really understanding what was happening? So, when you do understand, you are supposed to execute it . . . . .duh! ;-) That was another good thing to watch more than once and to get the real feel of doing it. It is going to take some more time, but I do feel much more comfortable with it than I did before.
The last thing was brushwork. I am almost giggling to myself as I write this! That feeling of a painting being so treasured that you don't dare do anything to 'spoil' it has gone away. Today I felt free to ruin the canvas if necessary and to go for it. So, I did. I have more to learn in this respect, but I am sensing a new feeling coming over me and my trusty little hairy stick. More fun!!Labels: California Landscape, Design, Experiment, Studio Painting
