Good Design is the blueprint for success!

Lately, I've had lots of emails and requests from students needing help with good design. They say that they have a good handle on texture and color, but they don't know how to finish their paintings.  I believe that good design has to be established BEFORE starting a painting.  It's like the foundation of a house.  A strong structure to support the house. 

Here's a great Design Exercise that will help you get started:  Using mat corners, crop into a photograph to about 2" x 2", until you like the abstract shapes.  (You can also cut out L shaped papers and use them for the mat corners.). The thing that you look for is high contrast and big simple shapes, in looking for the cropped room photo.  Below is the line drawing I did based on the cropped photo.   I like either the lights or darks to connect.  Turn your sketch all 4 ways to make sure that it is balanced.  Do a value study, using only a mid tone and the white of the paper.  This will force you to simplify the study.  I add the darkest darks within the shaded mid tone later on. 

                 

I like to use a continuous line that is the shapes of the dark shapes in this photo.  Now that you have the line drawing, try coloring in the center section as pictured below on the left.  OR.... you could shade in the corners, leaving a light shape that connects the viewer to all 4 sides. (See on the lower right.)   Notice that this practice gives you limited shapes. I count 6 in all!  You will know that you have a good design if all the corners are different sizes and there is good repetition and variation.  I hope this clears up some of the design questions.  I find it so different that the left and the right ones are from the same drawing shown above.

Warm-ups to kick Artist's Block

This is a "wire drawing" of an eye, done while I was up at the North Shore, relaxing.  Whenever I have art blocks, I have 3 or 4 tricks to get myself back into the mood.  One of these involves sketching anything with a pencil.  Then I use an ultrafine marker to connect all the lines, and finally, I add thicker lines with a fine marker.  Before you know it, an hour has passed, and now you'll be ready to paint the moon!  Another trick is to paint color studies, using only 3 colors, and starting with only 4 shapes.This color study started with a blue square surrounded by yellow.  In the middle of the blue square was a yellow olive shape with a red center.  Do you see them? I used manganese blue, cadmium yellow, and red rose deep.  At the very end, I allowed myself a mixture of alizarin crimson and winsor green for the black colors. Now you have 2 tricks to keep that mean old artist's block at bay!  Good luck!

Passing it on with Kindness

"With an Angel's Help"

This morning didn't start out so well.  I spotted a cold sore and thought sarcastically, "Oh, that's just great!"  But after driving my granddaughter to daycare (her smile that could melt ANY bad mood), I was again off to a good day.  I stopped at Caribou Coffee, (my favorite coffee place) and ordered my Northern Light Latte, and headed to the restroom to put on my makeup.  Then, I spilled my coffee all over the floor!  The girl who had waited on me, came into the restroom just then, and I apologized about the mess that I had made.  I told her that I would have cleaned it up, but there weren't any paper towels.  "Don't worry, we'll clean it up", she said.  I thanked her, and joked, "That was a very expensive sip of coffee this morning, since I spilled most of it".  She said, "No problem, we'll get you a new one!"  I also had purchased the keurig single serve cup coffees and she had said earlier, "Did you know that there are now dishwasher safe containers where you can put your own coffee in these little containers, and it would be far cheaper for you?"  (It reminded me of one more way that I could use less plastic and be more "green", to be nicer to our world.  Something, I really need to work on!)

What service, and what a difference she had made to my day!  Sometimes, people have no idea what a small gesture can do for someone else who just might be having a bad day.  A smile, or a kind deed can really make the difference!  I asked for her name, so I could write a letter about her kind deed, and her supervisor overheard me doing it.  I gave her the "thumbs up", and told the supervisor about her kindness.  I'll follow up with a letter to Caribou Coffee too.

This painting was done last year, using Elegant Writer pens, which I LOVE.  (Just click on this link and you can order them from Karlyn Holman.)   Karlyn introduced me to Elegant Writer pens some years ago, and I find them so much fun!!!  I've done many of these kinds of paintings.  I call them Story paintings.  They are very simple paintings, and are done totally free and easy with no forethought of what will be done.  I do a contour drawing, and then smear the pen marks for shading on the people.  A few glazes for depth, and they are done.   "With an Angel's Help" is a story about simple good deeds helping others around them. These story paintings are usually 14" x 7" images and are available for $95.    "Statuesque" (Day 28 of 30 Paintings in 30 Days) was also done using Elegant Writer pens.

Day 30- 30 Paintings in 30 Days!

"Party Time!"

Can you believe it???!!!  I'm done with the 30 paintings in 30 Day Challenge!  This portrays my excitement for reaching that goal, I think.  I did a contour drawing of some friends,, and then basically doodled with the Elegant Writer pen.  I think this would make a great card!  Now, all my friends are going to be wondering, "Is that me?"  I'll never tell!  What I learned from doing this 30 in 30 challenge:

1. Perserverance pays off!'

2.  It is madatory that you have a very understanding family before attempting this.

3.  Practice makes perfect!  I am a better artist than I was 30 days ago!

4.  Doing a series actually increases my imagination and creativity.  I have so many more ideas of people to paint!

5.  I lost weight during this challenge.  Perhaps staying busy keeps me from snacking????

6. Balance is a must in my life from now on.  Everything else fell by the way side this past month.

7.  It really helps to have friends cheering you on during this huge undertaking.  Thank you dear friends!

Now, what am I going to do with my time?  Organize..... for one thing!  Clean my studio, and I've made a new goal to create a 30 minute daily sketches every single day in the next year, starting now.   I love doing those, and we all have 30 minutes every day!  Hope you'll all keep checking in to see my blog.  I enjoy staying in touch!

Goals for the New Year!

After reading Myrna Wachnov's blog this morning, I decided that I, too, must write down my goals.  Myrna's blog is one of my favorites.  She is such a gifted artist.  You, too, should check it out!  http://myrnawacknov.blogspot.com/ 

My goals for 2012 are:

1. Work on my new book

2. Do more people paintings

3. Continue my 30 minute studies every day 

4. Lead a more balanced life!

This sketch is one I did in early December when I was at a Paint-in with 3 other friends in Wisconsin.  I just let myself sketch without a plan, and as I was sketching the people, I thought how odd that I had sketched 5 people, when there were only 4 of us there at the Paint-in.  Then, in studying it further, I saw that the 3 people were separated by a fence from the other 2 people.  Now, you might think I'm off my rocker when I tell you this, but the truth was that one friend who was supposed to be at our Paint-in, actually was traveling back and forth every day, visiting her husband in the hospital, and therefore, wasn't able to participate in our Paint-in very much.  I truly had nothing in mind when I started this sketch, and look what came out of my subconscious!  I'm thinking that the 2 houses in the background must be the fact that Janice was going from our house to the hospital every day.  Wow, spooky!!! My intention is to paint from this 30 minute sketch later this month.  I'll post it when it happens.  Happy New Year, everyone!