Author: -N-

What is a “Personal Style”?

In painting, it is really possible to look at a picture and say, “Oh, that is by so-and-so.”  If you are familiar with a painter, you become familiar with his / her style.  You can tell by the light, by the brushwork, by the colors, by the subject.  It’s like your face in the mirror – you know it instinctively.  This knowledge of what someone’s style “looks like” makes me question myself:  What is my style?

The fact is, I don’t have a style, unless I were to call it messy and scribbly.  This occurs when I don’t think about a composition or what I want to do, but just do.  I cannot say this produces much which I like.  Once I am involved in working on a piece, I do seem to be able to deal with compositional elements, and can say when to finish, and say, oops!  shouldn’t have done that!

So, when does one’s own style emerge?  Is it a conscious choice?  Is it something which develops slowly?

This question came to me last night when I was putzing around, following another Peter Sheeler video and practicing his exercises.  There is an ethical question here:  is it acceptable to do this?  I think it is, as he is posting his videos online for people to learn from – and I have been learning, most certainly!  The lack of ethics would be to pass them off as my own.

The lesson from last night was using wet-in-wet to paint trees.  Mine are not as successful, mostly because my paper is not the same as he uses.  The lesson was good, though, as the focus was on the trees and the bloom of the colors on a wet surface.  The rest of the lesson was good as I watched him put in shadows which, left to my own imagination, would not have shown up.  The lesson there is to think about where the sun is coming from, imagine it, see it in the mind’s eye, and then paint it.  That’s a valuable lesson.

Thus:  Peter Sheeler’s video on wet-in-wet.

And my own painting.

 

I found it interesting to see myself adding the spatters and the shingles on the roof, which weren’t in Peter’s original drawing.  Is this the beginning of my own style?

Holiday Cards: Laundry

Another practice study from Peter Sheeler.  Here he uses masking tape – painters tape – to create a frisket.  He tore pieces of tape and pressed them into the paper, as a resist to the dry brush technique he used to create the sense of a very windy laundry day.  As a kid, I remember those days, pegging the clothes and sheets.  It was a lot of fun, a lot of work, but always worth the smell of fresh air on your sheets when you went to bed.

First, here is the picture with the “laundry” masked with randomly torn bits of painter’s tape.

And here is the final picture.  To frame the picture, I used more tape around the edges of the picture.  If you watch the video, you’ll see why!

Peaceful Morning

 

Today is Christmas morning.  It is easy to forget what truly lies behind Christmas – thoughts of peace and hope, the turning of the year as the solstice brings back the light of longer days, and the values that are at the core of most of us.  Community.  Family.  The world around us.

For me, much of what I truly love in this world is ephemeral.  My family, my friends – we all will vanish at some point.  How many of us will be remembered in 100 years?  There is one thing, though, that never ceases to amaze me, and that is the natural beauty of the world, its diversity of life (human, animal, plant), and the fact that it is even here at all.

With this in mind, I wandered through some of the myriad photos I took on our trip last summer.  Here, a view out of the car window on the way from Mesa Verde, Colorado, to the state of Wyoming.  Here, the American West – sparse, grand, barren, and filled with life.  Merry Christmas!

Holiday Cards: Fallen Leaf

Once again, a demonstration from Peter Sheeler which I used for a card for my sister-in-law.

Peter’s is far more masterful than mine!  Who’d have thought a simple leaf could be so difficult?  I went in afterwards and inked in some extra lines and put a frame around the picture – the leaf looks like it is floating in space.

 

Sky, Interrupted

This morning I sat down to practice skies.  If I were to do the ones in my neighborhood, they would be blue.  That’s all.  Just blue.  Clouds are not a common sight where I live!

Anyway, so I scooted around YouTube and found some videos that had some good ideas.  One showed how to do lifting with tissue, advising not to scrub too hard on lightweight paper.  Important to know – I scrubbed a bit of the paper off.  Others used some rather wild color combinations, or certainly ones I haven’t thought about using.  Add to that, I wasn’t trying to accomplish anything more than playing, so it was altogether a fun way to start the morning.

This first one is a combination of Sodalite Genuine, by Daniel Smith, Ultramarine Blue, and Quinacridone Gold.  The Sodalite is a color I picked up on a whim, put in my palette, but had never used until this morning.  It granulates wonderfully, and is a good charcoal grey.  I think I will be using it again.

Then I started another one, wetting the paper once, letting it soak in a second time, and then wetting it again.  I am using Canson XL watercolor paper, which has a nice texture, is about 90#, and is a student grade paper.  I like it because it is working out really well for my needs.

After wetting the paper, I decided to start with a gradated wash, using the reverse side of another painting (to save paper, eh?).  The brush I used was a flat with rather stiff bristles, and the result was lines throughout the wash.  Oh, well.  Then I simply lifted the color off.  Then I began adding Carbazole Violet and Quinacridone Gold.

And then the phone rang!  My brother and his wife in Wisconsin calling, to wish us well for the holidays . . . . the painting was forgotten for the next several minutes, and this is the result.

Regardless as to whether or not this last looks like clouds, the colors have a lot of potential for a dramatic sky some day.  I really like the colors!  I like both, actually.

White space.  No mud.  I must be doing something right!