Daily Practice - Take Two, Bartlett Pears
1:27 PM
If you don't call them failures, and the painting is not a success, what do you call them? And yes, this is a serious question. I'm not really sure what to call it beside practice. Which is what this painting is. Perhaps I don't need to add qualifiers.
Again, this is the same pear composition from yesterday's post but a new painting. They are suppose to be back lit. I am a firm believer in the "get in, get it down the first time, get out" painter club, but I am seldom able to get it down "right" the first time. In this case, my pigment load was too light for the amount of water that was on the paper and so I had to paint the pears a second time to bring the saturation up.
The background also needs to be darker, but I'm not going to redo it as that's almost never successful - for me. I do see some things that went well. Better than last time. I also see much that could have been better. Looks like I'll be painting more pears in a different composition perhaps.
These wet-into-wet practices frustrate me on so many levels it's hard to know which one to tackle first. However, this is also why I've had an ongoing love affair with watercolor for so long - just when you think you've gotten a handle on it, you find that you really don't!
9 Creative Thought(s)
When I do these I have two excuses,; I did it too quick, and it is just practice.
ReplyDeleteI hear you on feeling comfortable with watercolor and then it throws you a curve so you don't get too comfortable!
The pears are really pretty.
I'm fine with the term "practice." But sometimes these attempts that don't please us really are beautiful, just not the beautiful we were after. So I vote for them all as being part of a "series." So these are your "pear series." :-)
ReplyDeleteI think these are beautiful. I love the colors ... juicy, Laure!
Thanks, Teri, I'll have to remember those "excuses"!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Donna, I must confess that my frustration with this wet-in-wet stuff may be skewing my "perspective" of these pear pieces. I don't know that they're destined to be a series, but I'll put them away for a while before I make any decisions.
...I like your "practice" paintings. I can definitely tell they are backlit from the shadows and the colors are fruity and fresh!
ReplyDeleteI like your mantra of "get in, get it down the first time, get out". I need to tape that to my art table in large letters!
ReplyDeleteWas interesting to hear your thoughts on this painting... what you did, and what you wished you'd done differently. Regardless of medium, I think we all struggle with a lot of the same things in our art.
Thank you, Kelly!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Teresa! I am a strong believer in the "get it down the first time and get out" theory because I believe every time you touch that paper afterwards, we give up some amount of freshness. Sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes (most times, for me) it's not.
Hi Laure, I like this one too! :-) I have a suggestion that doesn't fit the get in and get out approach but here goes...you mentioned that you would like a darker backgound. My suggestion is to turn this into a mixed media piece. You could go in with coloured pencils to add colour exactly where you want it. If your pencils are sharp and you use light pressure you can control how much pigment to add and you could build up a few layers that would add some interesting colour. Having said this, I do think the background is lovely as is. I just thought that as a practice piece, it might be fun to explore other options. I mean you can never go wrong with cps, can you? :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Teresa, that's a cool idea! I had not thought of mixed media approach. I'll have to try it on another piece though, my SIL has decided to lay claim to this one! Maybe I'll try it on the one from Friday . . . . hmmm . . . .
ReplyDeletei must say... your work is very special.
ReplyDeletethank you for sharing!
i look forward to exploring some more.
peace,
Chuck
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