Thursday, December 11, 2008

Planning

Reading the articles in my latest Watercolor magazine. There are always comments made by artists that really hit me and stay with me...not that I haven't heard these things before in class and from other artists but there is something about seeing them in a national magazine that gives them more power.

For example:
"For every hour I paint, I spend an hour or longer looking at the painting. Before I start, I preplan as much as possible and develop an extensive drawing."
--- John Salminen (http://www.johnsalminen.com/)


"You have to know what you aim to do and figure it all out in advance. You can't change your mind in the middle of a picture. Putting your ideas together into conceivable compositions can be the difficult and frustrating part."

So today I'm planning using these elements that may end up in the final painting - they may not!
















Photos taken by me from Shaker Village in Kentucky

A quick sketch of something I was thinking about at the time in my Exacompta sketchbook.

I'll use my Virtual Pose 3 cd images to get the body and position of the woman in the chair.

2 comments:

Marilyn Fuerstenberg said...

Rhonda,
I looked at both artists web sites.If you study some of their works, you can see how they use light. I also need to slow down and take time to think it through.

Perhaps that can be our goal for the new year.

RH Carpenter said...

Marilyn, so many times we want to get that paint going and enjoy the color - but I've found for artists who are at this calibre, it's really about the planning and working through to get to the painting = the fun part. And then stopping and letting yourself rest away from it and return to see it with fresh eyes before you finish it (or, in my case, overwork it). John Salminen is the originator of The Great White Shape that Sandy Maudlin teaches - see the Greater Cincinnati Watercolor Society blog post for her latest painting using the GWShape. Slowing down and thinking more = a good goal for 2009! You seem to do that already but I think more planning is never a bad idea - unless you spend all your time planning and never paint :)