This was the demonstration painting for the class I taught last Saturday. I asked everyone to work from a drawing. I chose one I did last year in California. After walking on the bluff above the ocean, I came indoors and did a sketch imagining the cliffs from out in the water. I believe when I draw my subject first, there is often more insight and understanding of it when I begin to paint.
This coming Saturday we`re going to work from something actual, like a flower or some other still life. We all have great cameras in our pockets with our smart phones. I`m very grateful for this but there is a real risk we won`t slow down enough to closely study something.
watermedia on paper 20"x16"
available work in my studio
When putting the camera between the subject and the viewer, there's not only the loss on intimacy that comes with close inspection of details; one fails to commit the subject to the mind's eye and memory. The subject becomes the camera's and not one's own.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of drawing the subject first, because that's mark-making, sometimes intuitive, sometimes less so, but it comes out of the act of seeing that then is translated through the hand; again, achieving a kind of intimacy with subject that otherwise would not exist.
Exactly Maureen!
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