Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Exploring shape and color...


1st painting in progress::palette from 2nd painting

Loving the abstract painting class.  The teacher is really great and I am learning lots and trying to push myself out of my comfort zone while still painting from a place I recognize.  The piece with the pink and blue (shown above) is still in progress and while I really like where it's going it is much more similar to something I would have done on my own than it should be. Instead of opening up and exploring the entire 30" square board, I divvied up the canvas and made it more manageable (not pushing myself enough). That night's class was about color and emotion and putting something on the board that we connected to emotionally.  I really like the color and feel of the piece and I have it on easel at home and will definitely be working on it over the next few weeks.  The color palette shown is for the 2nd painting I started and that piece is much more abstract in nature and it really resonates with me. I will be bringing that one home to finish up too and look forward to sharing it with you once it's finished and talking through the process of creating it.  We still have two more nights of class and all I know is that we will be exploring color and form.  This class is totally filling the creative well and I really feel like I want to paint something crazy big after it's over.  Today I was pricing 5'x7' canvases...that could be a bit overwhelming but maybe I could try something more like 3'x5'.  Have you worked on a really large painting?  What do you love (or not love) about working crazy big?


ps:  to counter working big in class I needed to work tiny so I created a mini version of 'A Place To Just Be'...it is titled 'The Getaway':)

2 comments:

artslice said...

How exciting to be in a class like that!!! I have to say I love working big. I am limited to about 40 or 42 inches and then my canvases start warping. I'm not handy with a saw, etc and don't have the stuff to built support bars etc.

Anyway, I adore working big because my whole arm can swish and move strokes from the shoulder... plus I love details. (my painting teacher used to call it 'large, calligraphic strokes/mark making) The more room I have the better - always seem to want to add more.

Small canvases make me feel a bit claustrophobic. Like an airplane seat that's too small and big people on both sides. Suffocating!

sorry for the rant:) Happy Friday!

tangled sky studio said...

whole arm swishing and mark making are just what i'm wanting to do although i can already see from my notes that i will have bits of minutia scattered on a large canvas as i try to tell a story with color, image and text ;-)