Note to Friends

Just a note to tell you all that I have been on vacation and helping my daughter. I am so tied up with her lately I haven't had time for much painting or drawing. I'm taking my granddaughters home tomorrow for the weekend and cross your fingers, I hope to get back to painting on Monday! LOL see you all then with something to post!

Back To The Drawing Board

I know you have heard the saying back to the drawing board, well that is exactly what I'm doing, drawing! When I was in high school, our instructor gave us a grade each semester for keeping a sketchbook. I literally Aced that project. I drew my classmates, teachers, desks, tables, books, trees outside, but very rarely took the notes for class!

I have been reading Edgar Payne's Outsde Composition. Here is an exerpt on how cave men started out:

Long before houses were built, primitive man not only sought to express himself pictorially, but realized also the need for receptive appreciation. Therefore he left visible records on the walls of caves and in the sheltered crevices of cliffs. In his relaxation from struggles with wild animals and his enemies, the prehistoric artist responded to natural instincts which called for needs beyond shelter and sustenance. With his crude tools and limited knowledge, he had ample opportunity to exercise his ingenuity; and so in order to better his expression he set about devising new tools and other innovations. He sought orchres and carbons to fill in his crude outline drawings, then soon began to practice simple shading, modeling and relating objects.

At first the early pictorialist knew little of organization or combining several ideas to express a larger one and usually depicted one item for each idea. Later he found that by relating the objects drawn, broader ideas could be revealed. If a wild boar, deer or buffalo were pictured, each carried the idea of that animal, but if a man with a spear were added, the relation produced broader significance. Combining several items to convey a message then became, probably one of the first general principles in art. As time went on other elementary factors were developed.

Through the ages, subsequent artists kept up the progression by new ideas, new principles and new modes of expression thus the institution of art has been maintained by virtue of the talent, innovations and accomplishments of all contributing artists.(taken from Composition of Outdoor Painting, Edgar Payne.)

This book should be a must in every artists library. He gives you the tools for good composition in your painting. Here is a list of the principle forms or stems of composition in his book:

The Steelyard, The Balance Scale, The Circle or O, The S or Compound Curve, The Pyramid or Triangle, The Cross, The Radiating Line, The Ell or Rectangular, The Suspended Steelyard, The Three Spot, The Group Mass, The Diagonal Line, The Tunnel, The Silhouette, The Pattern. Now if you want to know what each one means, LOL you'll have to check out his book at a local library or purchase it from Amazon.com.

When looking this book up on Amazon, I know one of the distributors to be reputable. It is Wilcox Gallery. This gallery belongs to Jim Wilcox, who I might add designed the outdoor Soltek easel. He is a very good artist in his own right and you will enjoy reading up on him. Check out his gallery at www.wilcoxgallery.com.

Everything I have painted today looks like POOP!

FYI:
Due to the different Blogs I have been reading about pirating and publicly calling those artists out by name. I want to point out that this pansy painting is from an online class I am taking with Dan Edmondson. And if I forget to point that out when posting those class projects I will apologize right now.

I have had the crappiest 2 days in painting.  I can't seem to do anything right.  I am just wondering why I am doing this!  I thought it was suppose to relaxing.  Today, I just decided to clean the brushes and walk away for awhile.  I am so frustrated I don't know how to get out of this slump.  Everything goes to mud.  It starts out good, then when I try to paint wet on wet it goes down hill from there.  Maybe I'm just not a wet on wet painter.   Maybe I need to paint in Acrylics for awhile.  Tap Tap Tap, is this thing on?  Does anyone have any suggestions?  Probably not, because I'm an unknown!  For a reason!  LOL

This is how it started... then it just went down hilll



This is what it looks like now:

 

Basically, the flowers got worse so I proceeded to wipe them out, then all the detail you see on the bowl got smeared with the paper towel and then it was over.. I totally had to wipe out the background the detail on the bowl. 

And another mud

Thank you for letting me get this frustration out of my system , computer.  Because this evening I just want to throw everything away or sell it one and go to my room and cry!  It is frustrating and if I ever figure it out, it will be in this blog and I will be able to go back and laugh at this someday.  Maybe...

Off to bed!

Magnificent Vision Show at the Philbrook

Sunday before I came home I managed to go by the Philbrook museum and see this show. I have posted some of the paintings that were there for you to enjoy. It was a good showing, not many of the big name artists that you hear about everyday and are familiar with, but gifted artists for sure. If you get the opportunity to see this show, do so. I loved the way the different artists painted the jewelry on their subjects, especially pearls. They were painted like grapes. Highlite, midtone, and shadow. I was fascinated with The highlites in the shimmery fabrics and the softness in the velvets. I wrote down every artist and the painting in the show so I could look them up again. I started posting them for you, then it was taking too much time so you have a teaser! LOL enjoy

Dutch Artist Jan de Bray
A Couple Represented as Ulysses and Penelope, 1668
oil on canvas, 109.9 x 165.1 cm (43 1/4 x 65);
139.7 x 195.6 x 12.7 cm (55 x 77 x 5)
Collection of The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky




Flemish painter Anthony Van Dyke
Portrait of a Woman 1635



Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn
Portrait of a 40 Year Old Woman Marretje Cornelisdr Van Grotewal



Herbert Drouais
Portrait of Scuptor Robert Le Lorraine 1730



William Hogarth
Dudley Woodbridge in his Chambers 1730

No Photo Available

Marie Victoire Lemoine
Portrait of a Young Girl 18th Century



Marie Victoire Lemoine
Portrait of a Lady 1790


Adelaide Labille Guiard
Portrait of Madame Adelaide of France



A closer view


The Philbrook has a nice collection of Thomas Moran's work also and I always love to see them. One thing I like about this museum, you can look as close as you want, Just Don't Touch! So I did! Hope no one does a painting of me with my head up so close to a painting looking like a fool! LOL

Well night all, I'm going to try to get at the easel tomorrow!