I have decided to start journaling through my love affair with artistic media of all kinds. I think it is helpful (though how helpful, I cannot say at this point) to write down new ideas and tips I come across from time to time, plus outlines of the creative process. As much as I would like to be a free spirit madly skipping around a snowy canvas, I find the process confining rather than exhilarating and, to my annoyance, usually wrestle the paint or charcoal around until I get the desired effect. This trial by error approach may be admirable in some respects; after all I am trying different ways of doing things. But I find that some order is necessary along with a record what I am doing wrong as well as what I am doing right.
Thus, putting this on my blog. This blog will then live up to its title.
When I took a workshop last summer out in Colorado, my teacher told me I was way too free with where I put the paint on the palette. I really didn' t didn't think it made any difference But given the short time one has to paint outside in changeing light and colors, this advice made sense. Now I am trying to think through two ideas on how to organize.
1. Putting the same paint in the same place each time and making it circular. I would start, say at 8 o'clock with my blues, then at 12 o'clock with yellows then at 4 o'clock with my reds. Between blue and yellow would be my greens and between yellow and red would be a slough of browns and neutrals. At 6 o'clock, I could put my white.
This palette would be the unmixed colors. Which brings me to idea number 2.
2. When I am plen air painting I will do a thumbnail to emphasize values, then mix the colors I will use quickly and in enough quantity. Then, the idea goes, I can concentrate the brush on canvas confident I have the right hues and can (with more abandon) paint what I am seeing before the light changes yet again.
Anyway, that 's the idea. I will let you know if it works..
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