Class Demonstration

Today I'm changing strategy a bit.

I started this piece last week in my oil painting class as a demonstration to show my students how I wanted them to start a painting. 

I used a transparent oxide red for the toning of the canvas, after I used my view catcher to find a composition that i really liked. I always stress the importance to taking time to look through the view catcher while moving around the subject and zooming in and out. Look for the best shapes and patterns while trying at the same time to stay out of the details, (the pear, the flower, etc.).

After the toning of the canvas, I used my brush to locate the subject while looking through the view catcher. First I find where the highest point is located and mark it with a touch of paint on the canvas. Then look again, and find where the lowest point of your subject is within the view catcher, and mark that on the canvas. The way this works is to first find the location using the outside border of the view catcher as a measuring point. Then as you turn to the canvas, you use the outside border of the canvas in the same way. 

From this point, go ahead and find the right and left margins of your subject. This way you know your design will fit inside the canvas. 

Try to leave your spaces (the distance of an object to another object or the canvas border), different lengths rather than equal. This will make things more interesting and help to keep your painting from being too centered. 

Now what I do is to create a value study using my toned canvas as the middle value. I will wipe out the lights and darken the dark shapes. This is the point where the painting is now. 
Starting a painting this way has benefits. First of all, it helps to use the toned canvas a a value in order to measure your others values against. It's more difficult to see value correctly while staring at a white canvas. If you put a little color on there it will appear darker than it actually is. Secondly, it is a very right brained way of getting started. You will be more inclined to use the creative side of your brain, and therefore you will be more creative with your thinking, design and brush strokes. It is much better to keep yourself in the more abstract start and keep thinking about shapes and values rather than tea pots and flowers. When you think tea pots and flowers you are already on the left side trying to describe what a tea pot and a flower "looks like". You do not want this, because then you will start to describe what you "think" they look like rather than really observing what is in front of you. A valualble lesson if you can force yourself to work this way.

Next Tuesday I will continue on this study to show the class how to proceed from here, then I'll post it for you.

I'll continue to post my daily paintings as I can, but have decided to go ahead and get started on some pressing work (paintings) that I have lined up (gallery waiting and also a commission client). In order for me to keep from getting too anxious about it I'll have to make them a priority over the daily paintings for now. 

More later!