Being in Seattle I cannot scan paintings. But I am studying the painting called, let's see... Don't know. The next step is to darken the porch shadow, but I cannot find the photo, so I don't want to do that until I get home. Other things I want to adjust:
remove purple shadow of wire on left
remove part of siding detail, as much as possible
bring more pigment into the left yellow to match the center yellow?
put blue, or something else, back into the sky by the roof, where I lightened it
leave a few bits of orange or red in the porch shadow when you darken it
My dear son-in-law said you should have a theme, like hang some buoys on the porch.
I said, I see what you mean, but this is more about design than describing this house in Maine.
Buoys would give information: this is a coastal house, could be Maine, here's a hint of what goes on around here.
But what I like about this work is the brilliant sun on the face of the building and how the colors work with each other.
What made me think of extroversion was the sky, I really laid in the pigment on the first wash, no shyness there. I remember my woodcut teacher and how he noted that I wasn't afraid to just put my knife into the wood. No perfectionism there. No drawing minute details and having them all in before you start. I think I have a hint of what David Dewey means when he talks about drawing and painting. You draw in your basic shapes, lay in your foundational washes, and as you proceed with your painting, you stop and draw certain parts. Not everything has to be accurate, but he says: every so often you have to draw really well.
I still love this picture.
We went to a small gallery here. I looked at some of the not very good paintings and saw the prices and wondered if they could sell. Who would want them? I thought, if they can get $400 for that painting, I'm in good shape to get paid for mine.
But different people have different tastes. Some will like those paintings and won't like mine.
So I think about how working for the public for 2 years uncovered yet more of the extrovert, plus being older, plus mellowing out with antidepressants and possibly more than any of it, working with my coach, building my confidence, seeing what the Lord has put in me. What does that have to do with art? It's just that I think I see a pattern. I have always liked to just get in there and put the thing down on the page, use the 6B pencil and make the shadows deep and dramatic. I hate H pencils; they are like trying to draw with a fork.
And at class this summer, when Christie told the guy near me to look at my painting, it was because I was not shy about making my darks really dark and showing the contrast with the bright kyaks, which were in the sun. The same thing when I took pottery... I loved wrestling with the clay, leaning into it, forcing that lumpy blob into a smooth sphere.
I was pretty shy in those days, until I got to know people.
Even then the part of me that was willing to put myself out there existd. I wasn't aware of it.
Just a thought. It's interesting to me how we grow.
