For the past couple of weeks my red boat house painting has gone through several iterations of playing with color and values. Still all quite preliminary.
Part of the reason for the experimentation is that teacher last week said he really wanted me to feel freer trying new combinations and ideas and not feel too wedded to the original reference photo — at least give up the notion of reproducing the photograph, as I’m supposed to be creating a piece of art, not a copy of something that already exists. Strong words, but I am taking them to heart — at least I’m trying!
This week in class I told teacher I wanted to focus on figuring out how to make the water look like water. He suggested I try working with palette knife to create some appearance of texture. You can view my initial attempt in the photo I’m posting here. I used a palette knife with a rectangular shape and loaded paint on the bottom and side and then tried to hold the knife at an angle and “draw” back and forth. As you can see, varying degrees of success. I’ll keep at this task over the next few days. After that I may scrap the idea because I also want to learn how to paint this image of relatively calm water and reflections without going the texture route.
LJ and NJ 
OK, Judy, you’re now where I was when I stopped painting, although it had nothing to do with why I stopped. You’re doing really well, and if palette knife isn’t working, don’t forget trying a really HUGE brush (we’re talking wall-painting size… like three inches) and just tapping color where needed. Also sponges of varying types and sizes can create interesting effects. What does Bern say?
Keep up the good work!!!
LikeLike
Thank you for your helpful comments and for your compliment. I assure you I am not even close to where you were when you stopped painting — but I’ll try to get there!
LikeLike
Looks like water to me. I don’t know what is meant by “values”, but I love the sky. By the way, there is a dark area in the lower right corner of the photo. Is that a shadow of the photographer?
LikeLike
Check out new posting. All will become clear!
LikeLike