I have been teaching a lot this year. Very grateful! One thing for sure, students love demos. I love a demo. (A short one!) I get really anxious to paint once I feel the gist of the goal. And I know I love to somehow see what a painter is thinking. The thought process is so important. And those who have taken a workshop from me know I like to hand out "tools". I avoid formulas and try to help students find and use different segues in to a painting. Here's some of my thought process illustrated. After we choose what to paint we start with just a few exercises of first simply separating light from shadow. Continually asking ourselves, "what's bathed in the light and what isn't"? Now that's when you have a strong light source. Gray days are a different animal. That's another conversation. The second and third examples are refining values and their relationships. Then I interpret it in color. All doing this "at once". So in a "nutshell", I choose my subject and ask myself "what's my light"? And at the same time I am asking myself "what's my darkest dark (value) and what's my lightest light (value)"? Then I may see color first but I always apply the other qualities of color. Like chroma, temperature, value, and local color.
We will also do the same exercise "separating light from shadow" when we have a figure model. I do the same thing with a landscape. Essentially I am trying to paint the light of the moment keeping the contrast between the shadows and the illuminated areas. I try to avoid a lot of contrast within the shadow and within the form bathed in light. Makes for solid reading paintings especially from a distance.
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I really like this work. Thanks for posting. I do see Bischoff and Park ( and perhaps a hint of Diebenkorn ) who are important to me too, but also the heritage if Porter, one of my own heroes! Keep up the nice work, hope to see it in person sometime.
Your demos, insights, recommendations, etc. are welcome whenever and wherever I can get them!...This is another nice option.
Thanks for blogging your thought process.
HI Peggy, I've been studying from your videos lately. they are amazingly helpful! Thank you for putting them out there!
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