I went out painting after work today in Central Park.
I had Specific Goals.
Good Goals.
****
A few days ago Sid told me about a painter named Michael Chamberlain.
He is amazing. His paintings are a perfect blend of simplicity and design.... he is a design genius.
So of course I have been binge-watching his youtube channel.
I find his approach a good balance to what I have been doing lately, and a good evolutionary progression.
Ever since I saw David Nakabayashi's Union Square painting last year, I have been painting scenes. I've been happily challenged with that, and I can do it, but they are scene paintings not design paintings.
Design paintings are a whole other level, a higher level.
So I want to zoom in a bit and look at abstract design and shapes in the composition.
That was my goal today.
I used a primary palette (quinacridone red, lemon yellow, ultramarine plus cerulean) just to make things simple on a 6x8 panel. I kept the painting to 5 distinct values. Clean brushwork. Minimal time (1 hour, 15 minutes). Intentional composition of abstract shapes. Simple. Less is more.
Throughout the painting I felt very controlled and it was good. I had good control of the paint and my brush. I kept my goals in mind and learned quite a lot.
But the painting is meh. It's not my favorite.
This is how it looked when I was painting it:
I had Specific Goals.
Good Goals.
****
A few days ago Sid told me about a painter named Michael Chamberlain.
He is amazing. His paintings are a perfect blend of simplicity and design.... he is a design genius.
So of course I have been binge-watching his youtube channel.
I find his approach a good balance to what I have been doing lately, and a good evolutionary progression.
Ever since I saw David Nakabayashi's Union Square painting last year, I have been painting scenes. I've been happily challenged with that, and I can do it, but they are scene paintings not design paintings.
Design paintings are a whole other level, a higher level.
So I want to zoom in a bit and look at abstract design and shapes in the composition.
That was my goal today.
I used a primary palette (quinacridone red, lemon yellow, ultramarine plus cerulean) just to make things simple on a 6x8 panel. I kept the painting to 5 distinct values. Clean brushwork. Minimal time (1 hour, 15 minutes). Intentional composition of abstract shapes. Simple. Less is more.
Throughout the painting I felt very controlled and it was good. I had good control of the paint and my brush. I kept my goals in mind and learned quite a lot.
But the painting is meh. It's not my favorite.
This is how it looked when I was painting it:
Then I thought, it's dark, I should look at it in the light.
And that's when the horror began:
OMG!!!
I freaked out.
Michael Chamberlain (rightfully) says you don't really know how the painting came out until you get home, so I decided to wait and look at it on the easel under my daylight spectrum lamp.
It passed the easel test. It's still not my favorite but it isn't a horror like it looked in direct sunlight.
So... all goals were met and in that way it is successful but this is still a meh painting.
*****
Today on Instagram I saw an artist (need to find out who it is) that has this as his biography line:
"I have 99 problems and painting is like 86 of them."
This is genius and exactly how I felt today.
It is not a horror but it doesn't feel like one of your paintings.
ReplyDeleteHa, I like the quote.