These are the two paintings I've done so far that are about a recent spring
morning farmers market in the Pacific Northwest town of Vancouver, Washington.
If you've seen the earlier posts about Flower Seller, you know that painting an oil painting on such a large scale was a new experience for me. It was so big, I had to move it off the easel and prop it against a wall in order to finish painting it.
I still love your Hot Cider with Coffee man!
ReplyDeleteI could see these up on cafe walls.
Thank you, CP.
ReplyDeleteThese two look well together, don't they? You kind of answered my question before I could formulate it (last post). I've heard artists kind of draw what is cutting into space, or draw to form the space.
ReplyDeleteWhich explains why I can draw or copy an image much better if I turn it upside down, since I can't detatch an image from my conception of the image. Or something like that. I'll hang up now.
Yes, exactly. Anything you can do to detach yourself from what you know about the image will help you to draw it better. Some other things to try, besides upside down (which is a terrific method) are drawing with your non-dominant hand (if you're lucky enough to have a non-dominant hand); taking off your glasses (if you wear glasses) or squinting when you look (caution:major wrinlkle hazard); or the most classic, drawing slowly without taking your eyes off what you are drawing (yes, this means you don't look at all at what you've drawn until you are done).
ReplyDeleteA really good reality check, if you like realism, is to draw the negative shape around the object you are trying to draw, instead of the object. If your negative shapes are wrong, you've gone very far away from realism.
Oh fascinating. I'll try it all.
ReplyDeleteAnd you'll undoubtedly develop your own riffs on these ideas. I'd be interested to hear them, when you do.
ReplyDelete