Critiques - to listen? or not?

This week was the monthly gathering of the Sisters of the Brush.    We nibble and eat supper, drink some wine, share what's going on in our lives,  then break out what we have been working on recently.  At this point we can almost justify calling these gatherings "meetings" - "CEO meetings", to be exact.  CEO standing for Critiquing Each Other.

Being happily retired, I have a lot more time to paint than some of the Sisters, and I think I take more than my share of the time, especially through the winter when painting is my primary activity.  Sometimes I take unfinished work that I can't quite decide is on the right track.  Other times I take finished work, just using the evening for some show and tell.   Sometimes  - this week -  I share things that I consider done, and then find out that I'm wrong!  I expect that's happened to each of us in the group, and this week it was my turn.

This morning glory painting has a lot of paper showing through.  What with the pattern lightly laid over a lot of the white, I was enjoying the open (summery!) lightness of the whole thing.  But I believe it was unanimous - we had all of us there for this meeting, and six of six said it didn't look finished.   I'm struggling with that, because I don't yet know how to add "more paint" (something that Susan Kell would have told us) without losing the delicacy.  I may just need to hang it back up on the wall for a while and think on it.

Little Shop of Horrors?

I said I’d post again to show how the  shapes I was starting with  became a painting.  I love the subtle colors and  contrasts in this painting, they are so different from my usual color decisions and probably overly dramatic lighting and contrast (see Momentary Revelation, at left). I was also happy with the almost invisible pattern that I added to the background, using the light table which is my new favorite art tool.
This painting feels gentle to me. 

However, the more I look at the finished product, the more I see something else .  . . have I inadvertently invoked the Little Shop of Horrors? I finished up those (tiny) blossoms, and now they look a bit toothy to me.  And once that popped into my head, the other burro’s tail strand is a bit like the water monster in “The Abyss”, and seems to be coming forward.      Hmmmm. Gentle yet threatening.  Not a combination I can remember achieving before.

I’d be interested to hear what others are seeing in this painting. 

Getting into the painting ZONE

I do love being a shape painter. This one of the ways I remember  Judy Morris describing herself  last year when I took her class at the Kanuga Watermedia Workshops in North Carolina.  It’s been nearly a full year since that class, with not that much painting going on until just recently.  But as I look at the past half dozen paintings (at least, the keepers), I can now see just how much I got from that workshop.   It has just taken a while for it to sink in.

In this painting of strands and flowers of burros tail,  I’m enjoying the heck out of painting shapes - hope you can tell.   I’ve done a lot of prep work, including a complete drawing, and some work pre-identifying my palette of only three or four colors.  Once that’s done, it’s so much fun to just go into the “zone” and fill in the shapes. And does time ever fly once I start.

This method is so much fun for me, in fact, that as I start each new painting, it encourages me to remind myself, “I’m a shape painter”.  So, again, I do more homework - planning - to start with, but then can just relax into the painting.

Stay tuned to see how this painting turned out, and find out what other Judy Morris techniques I’ve adopted  and incorporated in it!

The Walls are Alive Again

Tomorrow I hope to get my seven paintings back into frames and onto the walls. Eric Law did a fantastic job of photographing them, and I'm pretty sure I know which two will become entries for the Michigan Water Color Society annual.
Here's one that, much as I like it, I DON'T think I will enter.  It doesn't feel like an MWCS painting, although I'd have to work on why that is. This one has been photographed twice by Mr. Law, because it had a MAJOR revision and now has a whole new look. The black and gold in the background of this painting are both gesso, not my usual method.  Maybe that's why it doen't seem appropriate for the MWCS competition. At least the flowers aren't Pink!
The rest of the paintings, whether or not they go to this competition, are making me pretty happy and will become part of my November one-woman show at Fieldstone Winery.  So excited about that!  I'll probably share a couple of them here over the coming months, but not all. Need to give my friends some good reason to come to the opening!

Preparation begins

What? you say - Why is she posting such BORING pictures of empty walls?   Well, this is what my house looks like these days, as I prepare entries for the Michigan Water Color Society annual exhibition. It's been announced that this year's juror is Pat Dews, and the entries must be postmarked by February 11.

Recently my strongest tool for assessing a painting is familiarity.  I used to follow some artists' suggestion of hiding away a painting, then pulling it out to see it with new eyes.  Instead, I've been putting them, unsigned & unphotographed, into mats and frames, and hanging them where I see them often.  This has worked well for me, in that I'm finding out clearly which paintings can hold my interest, and not annoy me with small flaws.  Some fail both these tests, and eventually come out of the frames for corrections and sometimes complete reworkings. Others pass. The passing paintings get signed and  - currently - are stacking up for a trip to the incomparable Eric Law for photographing.

Once I get the results back from him, I'll look at the images to decide which ones are worthy of entering in the MWCS annual.
The down side you see here. Some very sadly empty walls for a while.

The Sum of the Parts

How does it go? The whole is greater than the sum of the parts?  That phrase occurred to me this morning when I looked back over my shoulder at the wall of my studio where I tape and clip things I’m working on.

This  view made me think that maybe mats and frames are NOT my friends as I thought they were. Several of these have made it briefly into frames and onto living room walls (this is how I decide if they are done  … or, sometimes, how I decide I don’t really like them at all).   A couple  may be done (whether I’ve signed them or not doesn’t count).    One of them has achieved ‘reject’ status.  And there are always fragments up on the wall from paintings that failed and got cropped and still failed – this process at least  seems to generate lovely long strips of colors and patterns that I can’t abandon.

But all pasted up together on this one wall, I like all of them. A  generous overload  of pattern and flower and all the things I love putting into paintings.   I don’t know if there’s anything for me to learn from this: I don’t think I should be collage-ing them all together into one gigantic frame.  I just liked the way they all looked, crammed together this way, and they made me smile.

Ordinary Times are Here Again

Ordinary Times are Here Again

The calendar is CLEAR again

Time for painting, never fear, again!

Ordinary  Times are Here Again

No, I don’t bid the holidays a sad farewell.  Tomorrow, New Years Day, I will gladly move forward into the New Year by pulling down and packing away Christmas clutter, and restoring our home to peaceful simplicity. 

And, already this week, I’ve made a good start on beginning what I have realized is my favorite season: Painting Season.

 It starts after the holiday season, and seems to come to an end when gardening season and then the concurrent cottage season both begin.  These run until late fall (with a slight easing in gardening midsummer, which is compensated for by cottage season) when, amazingly enough, holiday season again takes over.

Each season has its own upsides and downsides.  I am just learning to accept that they seem to drive me instead of me them.

To celebrate the start of Painting Season,  I’ve already started a BUNCH of paintings at once.  I’ve drawn several designs from my floral sources onto half-sheets,  then stretched them onto boards.  Many of my watercolor friends eschew stretching, and I sort of feel the need to apologize to them.  No, I DON’T think it’s necessary  or important – for your paintings.  But I really do like to start my paintings this way for myself.   Even the process seems to get me into the painting mood.

And what’s more important than that? Especially as the Season Begins!