Adventures in Paint & Pastel
Posted on 6/8/2013 11:31:48 AM
By Sharon Will
2 Comments
"Cabin Treasures" 10"x10" oil
The longer I paint, the more I realize painting is all about shapes. Duh! It seems so simple, yet so complicated. Braking down the subject matter into interesting abstract shapes. Then assigning values to those shapes and controlling their edges, creates the composition to move our viewers into our painting, lead them through it and back to that area of "center of interest" that we want them to linger at.
I like the design rule that simply says to make all shapes different, or a variety of them. In other words: "Don't make any two shapes and their values the same!" Variety is more interesting than "sameness" - is that a word? We all know that design principles can be pushed, stretched and even broken, but I believe we have to know what the principles are first, in order to break them with purpose, intent and success.
These thoughts were on mind as I set up this still life. On vacation in Hocking Hills recently, we rented a cabin in the woods for a great get away. After 2 days of intense hiking, I was actually glad it rained all day. The cabin itself was dark to paint in but it had a tiny loft accessed by a ladder with a sky light perfect for painting by. I found objects around the cabin and lit them by a lamp. The lamp base and ceramic pitcher were the same size, so I took the liberty to shorten the pitcher to give a "variety of shapes". The fact that the pitcher was divided into 2 values: light on bottom & dark on top, further broke up the shapes into 3 shapes/values within the 2 objects - more variety! I also looked for variety of angles in the towel edges to the table and lamp edges.
To push the feeling of warm light, I kept the dominate temperature of the whole painting in warm tones. But I also pushed the lit areas even warmer than they were, by adding more yellow to the lit towel squares and top of lamp base. Went a bit cooler in the shadow of the towel for contrast. I enjoyed my afternoon of painting inside, while my husband enjoyed his hiking and photographing in the rain!
