Wednesday, September 2, 2009

30 Painting in 30 Days

On Sept 1st I decided to do 30 painting in 30 days to get myself motivated and to make up for lost time in August. Well 2 down and 28 to go. I don't want to just do 30 painting but to do 30 painting that use what I have learned this summer in Italy in the correct manner. Old habits are hard to break especially if they are bad habits. For example just jumping in and throw paint on the foreground, than back ground, back to foreground and oh yes some middle ground work. In other words have a plan and a method of get down a design, determine the values and where the darks and lights go, start from the back and get in down and move forward. Painting is a discipline, a Zen and sometimes excitement or impatience's can get in the way. I study a copy of American Artist Workshop, Spring 2008, article of Maddine Insalaco, one of my instructors in Italy and how she put down the overall design, blocks in with dark colors the major forms, puts in the light values, redefines the design, works the details with values and moves step by step to a completed work. Painting is the act of defining the problem (the subject) and arriving at a solution.

I have a painting now in the High Road Gallery in Worthington, Ohio as part of a group show of the Ohio Plein Air Society. Its a juried show. The painting was done shortly after I came back from Italy using the palette and techniques I learned there. I like it.

3 comments:

Michelle Morris said...

McPherson did that 365 day thingy! 30 paintings in 30 days is ambitious! Go for it!

Jeffrey Risner said...

Yes and its harder than you would think. So many other life things just pop up to interrupt. Car needs fixed, lawn needs mowed, art organization needs help. I have to play catch up a lot this week but the point of practice and learning gets done.

Sri Debi said...

Haven
t been on your blog in a while. Nice to see what you are doing here. How did you do of the 30 in 30? Remember I told you about Edie and my mini marathon, 9 paintings in 2 days. 4 of those were value studies.