Wednesday Afternoon, Market Day

Jim told us a story about Leonard Bernstein. The story is that if he missed practice for three days his audience would know the difference, if he missed practice for two days, his manager would know the difference and if he missed it one day, he would know the difference. Isn't this true? We really need to sketch and/or paint every single day to stay on top of our game, just as Leonard Bernstein - who was one of the best musicians of modern day - needed to practice every day. What makes us think we can just jump right in and paint a wonderful painting on occasion? It just makes me realize how difficult this really is. If it were easy, we wouldn't appreciate good art, we'd just expect it.

It's market day, after lunch and Jim is going to paint a demonstration painting for us before we get started. He pointed out to us that when you are trying to figure out which way the sun is going, look at the shadows - notice that the sun is always vertical to the cast shadows of the trees. This helps with our paintings as well, to get a better feel for the light. Another tip - if you trace the shadow with your finger it will point directly to the sun.

In his demo, he begins with the most easily identifiable color and value first, starting to paint the middle darks first. Once you identify this first color/value shape, use it to compare your other color/value shapes. Now he moves to the shadows and does the same thing - by looking around you can find the color that is kinda what you think - what is it most like? Keep it general at this point. When you finish with the darker values, move into the lights (not the highlights and accents but general lights) of the painting. When you start a painting with the large value/color shapes, it is like a 50 cent coin, then as you move into the smaller shapes, think of putting a quarter on top of the 50 cent coin. Later, you paint the smaller shapes, think of a nickel on top of that quarter, and so on, then would come the highlights and accents, the dime. The darks get darker, the lights get lighter. That's why you stay general in color in the beginning. Jim is full of insightful ideas about painting!