Completed Saturation Painting

Day 3 of Saturation Painting

I spent today working mostly on the figure, trying to make it duller and more in the background.

I'm having a hard time with maintaining one style. While on some objects I've been very lively with my brushstrokes, on other objects are starting to appear quite smooth. I'll have to go back to add texture.

Saturation Painting

After day 1:
















After Day 2:
















Colors:

This is a much more exciting painting because we get to use brighter colors. The earlier paintings moved from shades of gray to warm and cool shades of gray. In this painting, we created a pallet completely out of yellow, blue and red. We do not use white at all. We also don't use black. Our darkest colors are violet and blue violet.

Method:

In this painting I tried to avoid the edges even more. My teacher was most excited about the potted plant in the first picture I uploaded here. She says that in the beginning, it is a good idea to keep the painting very open. By this she means not defining the edges just yet. This is because the painting could possibly change as I fill in other parts of the painting. I think that the mistake we often make is outlining the object, and then we are often too afraid of going back to make the necessary changes. Also, it seems from the past painting, that defining the objects too soon can make it appear flat. The object begins to take shape as I lay down the colors and the shades and lights.

This painting has been the hardest, but it is also the most fun. That's because in trying to be free, I laid down color very rapidly. I also kept my brush strokes alive. What I mean is, while in my first painting, I tended to go in one direction with my brush strokes, in my second and third paintings, I've learned to move in different directions. For example, the brush strokes do not all have to go vertically on the side of a box. It can be vertical, horizontal and even diagonal. This seems to help make the box come alive more.

What makes this painting difficult is the pallet. It is hard to look at the objects, which have their own colors, but see them in shades of warms and cools. Then use such vibrant colors on them! For example, the round thing on the right is actually black, but the light that glows off of it makes parts of it appear look warm. So using violet helps keep the warm tone. The pot is blue, and the light that reflects off of it can look cool. That's what I think anyway.

There are actually two table cloths. One red, and on top of that is a light purple one. It looks orange in the painting. That's because the light casts a warm glow on it. I'm trying to bring in undertones of violet to show that it is purple.

Thoughts...

I've learned so much. And what I've been telling Jason is that I'm glad that I am doing it now. I think I am absorbing it differently than I would have if I had tried to learn it when I was younger. As I've gotten older, I'm more open to learning things from the beginning. Having drawn most of my life growing up, I think I was more stubborn about my style and the way I knew how to draw when I was in my late teens and early 20s. It would have been harder to break down those preconceptions about drawing and art to explore techniques. Besides, I know back then I would not have wanted to paint still lifes...how boring!

It's funny that now that I'm older, I'm actually more willing to start from the beginning. Both my figure drawing teacher and my painting teacher have said that there is a disadvantage to already knowing how to draw. Because those people always do it that way, and it always looks like a drawing. It's much harder to go back to the beginning.

So I'm trying to not know. To just explore and feel my way around this painting. And it's surprising! Because suddenly, I find that I am learning to paint in a way that is completely different from the way that I've always drawn. It's gotten to the point that when I just have a paper and pencil, I'm a little stunned and don't know what to do. I want to make different colors of smudges until the the picture manifests on the page. That has been the greatest pleasure...when random smudges of paint starts to transform and surprises me with a beautiful image.

Push the painting further

When I thought I was nearly done with my second painting, my teacher said, "Push the painting further." She took my brush and smeared the edges and added more brush strokes to the center. She said my tones were good, but the objects had a quality of being there and not really there. She said that I should not define the objects. This second painting seemed to say, "Yes, I am a bottle." But the bottle should be brought out of the painting, not defined by me. I attempted to liven up the brush strokes and blend the edges a little more. I noticed that it added a little more 3-d quality. Here is the final product. I will post my nearly complete version next to the final version to see if a difference can be seen.

The nearly complete version:













The complete version:











I remember having to add a lot more paint on as well. It also gave me an opportunity to straighten the bottle necks. I'm still unhappy with the blue bottle in the back right hand corner though.

It was an interesting lesson in observing the relationship between things. An edge only appears to be an edge because two things come together. Particularly the sides of the bottles. Being too aware of the edges end up creating 2-d objects. I suppose the edge comes together when two colors meet. In my next painting I try to ignore the edges even more by just laying down the spots of color.

Oil Painting

Painting 1: Value Study
In this first painting we used only different shades of gray to practice looking at only the shadows. The still life objects were all painted white so that we are not distracted by their actual colors.

Before doing this first painting, we were told to do a charcoal drawing. I had not done any charcoal drawing since pretty much last summer, so it felt like starting over again. But after a couple of sketches, I felt more confident.

When painting, I realized that the charcoal drawing class had really helped. Everything that was taught to us about ignoring the lines or the outlines of objects and really looking at the shadows helped with this painting. I also felt confident with putting paint down because I knew that I can always put more paint down to cover up any mistakes!



Painting 2-1: Cools and Warms
In our second painting, we are working with a limited pallet of only cool and warm tones of gray. This may not look like shades of gray to you, but let me assure you that it is supposed to be. First, creating the pallet took one whole 3 hour class. We started by mixing a "natural" gray. Then we added yellow ocher to create warmer and warmer shades of the gray. On the other side, we added ultramarine blue to create cooler shades. Then working from top of the pallet to the bottom, we added more and more whites to lighten up the shades.

This picture is after one 3-hour session of painting. I began by putting down a thin layer of paint to get an idea as to where all the objects are. After the first painting, I realized that I was still working too hard on creating the edges. I still faltered to drawing lines and filling in with color. This time, I tried to build up contrast areas. Like looking at the dark areas compared to the light areas, and working from the inside of an object outwards. The objects are fuzzy right now, but that's ok because it is an underlayer.


Painting 2-2.
This isn't quite finished yet, but it is close. This one is from Day 3 of this particular painting. I did not take a photo of Day 2, but imagine this one with less paint. During the critique, my teacher, Helen, said that it was a good start, but I needed to lay on more paint. I had been too cautious in applying thin layers of paint. That made the objects look flat and lifeless. It seems that adding more paint makes the objects look more solid. Also, working on the shadowy parts and light parts seem to make the objects look more solid.


In my earlier version I had a hard time with the fabric. I had a hard time painting the creases. In day 3, what I did was use my brush to blot on darker areas where there are creases. Rather than trying to use a thin brush to draw out the creases, I just looked at the fabric intensely and blotted on the dark parts. Then I added the lighter surroundings and blended the colors on the canvas. This helped. What I noticed is that when trying to draw the creases, or draw what creases are supposed to look like, the image starts to look flat.

Another interesting thing I learned is applying color on the flat box areas and the sheet. When looking at an object it may seem that there is one large area of one color. It is tempting to just lay on a big flat area of one color of paint. But that would make it look flat. So I tried to really look at where the light is glaring off of the box or the sheet, and I start to notice that the color changes in different parts of the object. Capturing different colors on one surface of the object seems to create a more realistic look.

The other thing is the edge. Instead of drawing a line to create the edge of the box or the table, I tried to make the shadows meet. For instance, the edge of the table seems to be brighter because the light glares off of it more. That creates what appears to be a light line along the edge of the table. The edge seems to come from one mass of color in contrast with another mass of color, or one shade in contrast to another shade.

A major problem area are the bottles. I have a hard time making them stand up straight! I think my hand is not stable enough and both bottles seem to lean to the left and look a round a wiggly, not like solid glass.

This has been an exciting experience. I love watching my painting take shape. I also love the way oil goes on. So far, I'm liking oil painting much better than acrylic.

Starting to Paint

Once again, it's summer, and it's starting to seem that this is the time I pursue my true passions. Is it too late for a fine arts degree or is that my fickle Gemini self talking?

Painting is intimidating, at least when trying to do it for the first time. I suppose like figure drawing, entering a room full of artists, to attack something new in what seems to be a professional atmosphere is intimidating. There are tools...all kinds of tools. And entering an art supply store as an amateur, looking at the aisles upon aisles of paints and brushes and pallet knives with just a printed list of supplies...that's intimidating! There is the constant fear of being found out as nothing more than a wannabe, a fake, pretend artist, who has no right to be here. If entering a painting and drawing class is intimidating for me, someone who has at least spent most of my growing up drawing and doodling on notebooks, I can't even imagine how intimidating it must feel for someone who has never drawn. It can be so simple, yet feel so unattainable.

Painting, even for a drawer, feels like diving into the abyss. All you need is a pencil and paper to draw, and you can always have the joy of erasing. But putting paint down on white paper...wow, it's not too different from using charcoal the first time. That damn black stuff just won't come off, and you're doomed with whatever monstrosity you put down.

But diving into the abyss is thrilling!

I took an acrylic painting class a few months ago. It helped that it was just a fun evening class with other professionals who are just taking the class to relax and are not trying to make a career out of it. The teacher got us started right away with using the full range of colors and told us how to mix different colors right away without having us use too much time experimenting. We painted mostly from pictures of simple landscapes. The other students felt as foolish as I did, and it felt more like a support group, or maybe art therapy with paints! The point is, it got me started laying paint to canvas. And while I ended up with more than a few awful paintings, I learned to use a brush and apply paint. I discovered how different brush strokes might look and how colors can blend on the canvas. It made me brave.

Now here I am in an oil painting class that is for art majors during regular school, but open to everyone during summer. Putting the fear behind me, I remind myself that this is just for fun, for practice, and that no one will judge me, nothing is riding on my success, that I just have to put paint onto canvas, and be free.