Deja vous

I have a pile of failed paintings in my studio.  Old friends that just didn't quite cut the mustard!  What causes a painting to fail?  Bad composition is the main culprit.  I'm famous for becoming so enthralled with rendering a subject that I don't recognize the flaw until I'm done!  Sometimes just a lack of control of the medium or your materials.  Life is too short to use cheap materials.  A bargain on paper, brushes, or paint can turn into a disaster. I have finally been painting long enough to know what works best for me and I stick to that.

Why keep the fails?  Sometimes you can find miniature paintings in a failed composition.  Run a small mat over it until you find something in that window that has fresh appeal. I recently did that with this painting of Pansies.  I painted this on Arches 300 lb. Cold Press and could not get the texture and the rigidity to work with my style of painting.  The composition didn't lay well either.  It's been in my studio for a year- and pulling it out I had fresh eyes to evaluate what went wrong.  I took the scissors to it and got two delightful minis from it.

   Next, I decided to try the painting again, this time on 140 lb.  Arches paper and with a years experience behind me, produced a more successful painting.  Pansies make me happy.  They have little "faces" that always look like they are smiling at me.  You would think painting the same thing again would be boring but it wasn't.  It flowed so much better and I felt like I was saying hello to an old friend.  I painted it almost in one complete session (of course I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning with Chick flicks on the TV to keep me company). 

The moral of this very long story?  Don't be afraid to give a painting a second chance.  You'll be surprised at how much your skills have grown and who doesn't need a do-over now and then?

Don't forget to draw

Got drawing?  It's so easy to get so wrapped up in the pursuit of a great painting that you forget to hone your drawing skills.  Drawing is the basis of all art.  It is the fundamental language of imagery.  How fluent are you at drawing?  Just like learning a language you can teach yourself the basics of drawing.  Here are a few things I try to remember about drawing:

   Drawing gets easier the more you do it.  Challenge yourself to draw something every day.  Carry a small journal with you and draw while you wait in line or when you talk on the phone.

   Train your brain.  Draw something you can see, not just something you imagine.  Look for shadows and light.  Find basic shapes like ovals, squares, rectangles, circles in your subject.  Make yourself look and look and look.

   Learn values.  What is the darkest dark on your subject?  What is half as dark?  What is the lightest shapes?  Studying values will serve you well as you compose paintings and as you work with colors.  

My great uncle Leonard was an artist in the early days of Disney Studios.  He would visit us and draw for hours while my sister and I sat transfixed at the images coming to life on the paper.  I remember thinking then that I had to become an artist!  I wonder what he would think of this picture I drew of Carlie and a little girl she met while visiting an orphanage in Mexico recently.  The girl put on her sunglasses and posed for this photo.  I often think of him especially when I draw.  He gave me a precious gift-  the magic of art.  Grab some paper and a pencil, it's all you need to make a little magic of your own.