Tag Archive for: unity

When is a Painting Finished 2

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I looked at the painting in the mirror, as I often do, and it just worked! There were so many details that I wanted to straighten out, but I was afraid to continue because the painting was working as a whole.

I have been working on this rescued painting for a little over a week. It has been a nice process. I haven’t gotten uptight about it and have proceeded freely, with a sense of experimentation and have been pleased with the results. The last thing to tackle was the sky. The blue needed to be unified and even though I liked the play of shapes in the clouds, they felt, and to some extent still feel, contrived. (Anne informed me, as went out, that they look like floating turds.)

Today is a beautiful spring day. It is about the same time of year as when I took the original photo and started the reference painting. The clouds today are like the ones I wanted to paint, so that is auspicious, but when I finished with the blue I had to stop. I looked at the painting in the mirror, as I often do, and it just worked! There were so many details that I wanted to straighten out, but I was afraid to continue because the painting was working as a whole. Any little change could take away from that magic.

I think that I will have to forge ahead and trust that I will be able to keep the “whole” in mind while I adjust the details. Still, I had to at least stop for a little while, take this photo and write about what was going on. Have you had similar painting experiences? Let me know. Also visit again and tell me if you think I was able to finish work on the details without losing the overall light and unity of the painting at this moment.

Sunday Drawing March 27 2011

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[catablog category=”Sunday Drawing March 27 2011″]

This week I continued to pay attention to the unity of values and how they bring the form together as a single, coherent element. This is most evident in the first image (the five minute pose). I then became involved in a different focus. I suddenly realized that when I came to understand what I was seeing, I didn’t have to focus much attention on what I was doing. Instead of paying close attention to the lines and marks that I was making, I looked and thought about what I was seeing – the model and her proportions, the gradations of value and the planes. I also attempted to remember that the model was a person, and as Nicolaides suggested, I imagined what it would feel like to hold the pose she was in. With that awareness, the very fast and spontaneous marks that I made, seemed to really describe the model!

Sunday Drawing, March 20, 2011

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Sunday Drawing, March 13, 2011

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I can accidentally come back to a drawing approach that I had forgotten about and rediscover its virtues in a deeper way. It can seem cyclical. On Sunday I started the drawing session using the side of a broken piece of graphite about an inch long. I worked the short, one minute poses placing touches rather than making lines.  Here are two of the short poses.

I touched all around the body very quickly and was surprised to find that I had the feeling of capturing something of the essence of the head, torso and limbs in just a few marks. This was enough to inspire me to use the same technique for longer poses in which case I was able to keep adding layers of marks to build up the forms. There is something about placing marks rather that drawing lines that makes me see in a different way. perspective becomes more intuitive and the sense of form becomes heightened. I continued to work quickly circling through the figure again and again. Here are two ten minute poses.

The teachings of my Japanese painting teacher came back to me. I was creating images that were very unified as a single element. This was a concept the Kaji Aso worked very hard to get across to his students. It is difficult to explain but actually pretty simple. The darks and lights of the whole form work together and define each other. They do not need lines contain them. The whole figure is like a single drop of water that is held together and made one by some invisible force. Below on the right is the drawing from my session that best exemplifies this unity. On the left is an ink painting by Kaji Aso.