Study your selections. How might you render one of them using the fewest brush strokes possible? Can you capture the "essence" of a tulip, or a banana --or the daffodil below -- in just a few strokes? Try it.
This is important. It can help break the habit of over-producing a painting, and can foster the sense that some of the most beautiful paintings are delicate and quickly rendered in nature.
Try this until you truly tire of it. Loosen up your arm, try not to be so invested in the results. Then make a selection, scan and submit. Of course, if you have questions, include them in the margins of your paintings, or in your journal.
A began on the left with some transferred shapes and then worked my way to the right simply making shapes with brush. I felt like I was picking up a nice easy method as I worked through the last few cherries, getting to the "essence" of cherry.Permanent Alizarin Crimson with various amounts of Payne's Gray. Stems with good old Viridian in just one stroke by pushing into the brush for the abscission zone.
I like that thought about overlaying stems. Now I should try overlaying the fruit themselves. Hey, this could turn into a bowl of cherries! :-)
I had taken alizarin crimson off of my palette years ago when the Wilcox books came out and revealed how fugitive that pigment was. I missed it terribly and for some unknown reason never got around to experimenting with the newer 'permanent' version but after seeing your tomato and now these cheerful little cherries, I'm going to have to get a tube and put it back on my palette where it belongs!
ReplyDeleteOur blueberries are ripe as of this week (2 weeks early) and I was entertained this morning by momma duck and her "lings" wandering around our yard and dock feasting on the berries on the lower branches and making me laugh as they literally jumped to reach the ones 'just a bit higher'. Even now as I type this, I can see the bushes along the lakeside shaking and bouncing from the ducks who are now nibbling the berries from the water's edge.
Yesterday I waded along our shoreline while picking and eating berries, my dog in the water with me, following along and nipping off her own berries... ahhhh... now THIS is summer!
~gretchen
It's such a lovely paint. It was rather off my radar as it was not included in the Wilcox exercises. Lucky for me that in the past I'd gone on a tube buying marathon! I tried my all my reds and this one came in as the most pleasing, plus it mixed nicely with Payne's Gray.
ReplyDeleteHandprint has fascinating information on the mix of pigments in the W&N brand which I am using (quinacridone pyrrolidone and quinacridone maroon), himself giving it a II lightfastness rating.
I love your duck and berry story! :-) I've been lately eating tons of store-bought blueberries, in season but clearly the cultivated varieties. They simply cannot compare to the flavor of wild...
Oh, by the way, my tomato's red is W&N Permanent Rose. It's perhaps not so violet leaning and not as saturated as the Permanent Alizarin Crimson.
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