Thursday, July 1, 2010

Through the Window continued...


    At this point I don't want to get caught up in any one area too long, which could throw things out of balance. When I'm processing what I'm seeing in order to translate objects into a painting it's necessary to forget  conventional thinking.
    After years of seeing things, an apple, a car etc. we all develop a kind of visual shorthand of identifying "things", we don't have to analyze a car to know what it is with a quick glance.  The opposite of this is to look at things as if you've never seen them before, and don't assume anything about them. Looking for shapes, than deciding what color to make the shape as well as what happens on the edges of the shape is how I move forward - don't think sail- think triangle of pale blue.


   Here is the finished painting. The difference between this stage and the previous is just more moving around the image and grabbing more shapes to develop.
   A few words about detail - the beginning painter believes the magic of a great painting are the details brought to near reality. This has some truth but can also be lethal for a painting. There are two major problems with this approach:

1. If everything is rendered in detail there is no room for the viewers' own personal interpretation of the painting, everything is completely spelled out for you
2. The human eye does not focus on everything at once, try it- stare at something and notice how things in your peripheral vision are fuzzier

  The strength of using details is to keep them in the areas that you, as the artist, want the viewer to look and dwell longer, the areas that you feel add the most clarity to your story.