Checotah Painting Stage 1 (maybe)
Aug. 10th, 2010 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cristinreneeI was angsty last night because I thought I needed another canvas ready to work on in class today just in case I had time leftover from working on the Mermer painting. During the first class, I'd tentatively decided on a picture of Checotah (a.k.a. Chickie) as my second class painting, but I've been fighting with that decision since. The only ways I really wanted to crop the picture would not fit on a standard-sized canvas.
I settled on a square canvas last week, but because I wasn't thrilled with the composition, I didn't want to waste a big canvas on it. I had it all sketched out on a 10" x 10" canvas. (Or was it an 8" x 8"? Whatever. It was small and cramped and it didn't make me happy.) Erased it as best I could.
Last night, I hunted for other images that I really wanted to paint right now. They all fell into three categories:
a) Things I'd been told we weren't to paint in this class (such as people or "complicated" stuff);
b) Things I wasn't going to paint in class because everyone else in class is painting them (flowers); and
c) Almost entirely monochromatic pictures (white bull in snowy field in Montana, black and white donkey in another snowy field in Montana, awesome tree in a snowy field in Montana, a black dog and a golden dog running through tall golden grass in North Dakota--what can I say? Some of my favorite places are very subtle in color.)
I thought the monochromes wouldn't go over well because we're supposed to be learning about color-mixing in this class.
Finally gave up and tried to make Chickie work again. Spent an hour or so drawing her on a 14" x 18" canvas. It was getting pretty late when I quit. Woke up at five this morning and erased her head. (Poor girl!)
Spent about an hour fussing with her head again and smudging the charcoal around something awful. I think I'm content with it now, though I'm not crazy with all the emphasis on line drawings in this class. Unless I want my end result to be a line drawing, I don't do them. I look more at the shapes of shadows and colored areas. I'm sure that's a benefit when I get to the painting stage, but it makes my original sketches a bit odd.
Wonder if I'll end up using this in class now.
I settled on a square canvas last week, but because I wasn't thrilled with the composition, I didn't want to waste a big canvas on it. I had it all sketched out on a 10" x 10" canvas. (Or was it an 8" x 8"? Whatever. It was small and cramped and it didn't make me happy.) Erased it as best I could.
Last night, I hunted for other images that I really wanted to paint right now. They all fell into three categories:
a) Things I'd been told we weren't to paint in this class (such as people or "complicated" stuff);
b) Things I wasn't going to paint in class because everyone else in class is painting them (flowers); and
c) Almost entirely monochromatic pictures (white bull in snowy field in Montana, black and white donkey in another snowy field in Montana, awesome tree in a snowy field in Montana, a black dog and a golden dog running through tall golden grass in North Dakota--what can I say? Some of my favorite places are very subtle in color.)
I thought the monochromes wouldn't go over well because we're supposed to be learning about color-mixing in this class.
Finally gave up and tried to make Chickie work again. Spent an hour or so drawing her on a 14" x 18" canvas. It was getting pretty late when I quit. Woke up at five this morning and erased her head. (Poor girl!)
Spent about an hour fussing with her head again and smudging the charcoal around something awful. I think I'm content with it now, though I'm not crazy with all the emphasis on line drawings in this class. Unless I want my end result to be a line drawing, I don't do them. I look more at the shapes of shadows and colored areas. I'm sure that's a benefit when I get to the painting stage, but it makes my original sketches a bit odd.
Wonder if I'll end up using this in class now.
