All this water isn't a great subject for my "less is more" challenge but the reference photo has been on my drawing table for weeks so I started painting from it. At some point, I decided it needed more. Not more detail in the water or trees, but more something. So I added the pink line framing the scene. Window frame, camera frame, picture frame? How about "Frame of Mind?" 14 x 14 inches, pastel on gessoed Wallis paper.
Friday, February 27, 2009
frame of mind
All this water isn't a great subject for my "less is more" challenge but the reference photo has been on my drawing table for weeks so I started painting from it. At some point, I decided it needed more. Not more detail in the water or trees, but more something. So I added the pink line framing the scene. Window frame, camera frame, picture frame? How about "Frame of Mind?" 14 x 14 inches, pastel on gessoed Wallis paper.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
the garden hose solution
Today, for my "less is more" challenge, I hosed off an old painting and to the music of Paul Simon's Graceland, I applied a minimal amount of pastel for "Graceland Pond." Now I'm looking in my art database for another old pastel painting to wash off. 14 x 14 inches, pastel on gessoed Wallis paper.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
less is more
Our tax preparation is 99% done, my nursing duties for my husband's shoulder surgery are tapering off and I have a show deadline to meet. Time to get back to painting.
An ongoing challenge for me is to make my work more minimal - the essence of a scene, not the detail. I like the idea of engaging the viewer to make the scene their own - using their imagination or experience of a place to complete my areas of suggested trees, a pond, or wild flowers. How few strokes can I make to say what I need to say?
A month ago I quoted from William F. Reese's book, The Painter's Process. Tonight I opened the book again and found exactly what I needed (funny how that works). "Simplicity requires greater knowledge and more time. It takes a great writer to say more with less. The same is true of artists. Editing is what art is all about." And, advice in yesterday's posting by Richard McKinley in his Pastel Pointers: "The novice paints the leaves; the master suggests the tree." This week, I'll be working with those words in mind.
An ongoing challenge for me is to make my work more minimal - the essence of a scene, not the detail. I like the idea of engaging the viewer to make the scene their own - using their imagination or experience of a place to complete my areas of suggested trees, a pond, or wild flowers. How few strokes can I make to say what I need to say?
A month ago I quoted from William F. Reese's book, The Painter's Process. Tonight I opened the book again and found exactly what I needed (funny how that works). "Simplicity requires greater knowledge and more time. It takes a great writer to say more with less. The same is true of artists. Editing is what art is all about." And, advice in yesterday's posting by Richard McKinley in his Pastel Pointers: "The novice paints the leaves; the master suggests the tree." This week, I'll be working with those words in mind.
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