Building A Painting
“The beginnings and ends of shadow lie between the light and darkness and may be infinitely diminished and infinitely increased. Shadow is the means by which bodies display their form. The forms of bodies could not be understood in detail but for shadow.” - Leonardo da Vinci
“Sedona Shadows” 9x12, painted on location
The past couple months I’ve been painting the California and Arizona desert. It was both inspiring and challenging to be out in this new and grand scenery. Daily, I would pack my gear and head out to the unknown, a mix of excitement and nervousness each time. Although, the more I went out, the more comfortable I became, and the less ‘precious’ I was with the turn out of my work. I kept reminding myself, this is not that precious, just one painting at a time . . . and suddenly a couple months flew by and I now have a strong body of over 30 new plein air studies. And, I have certainly grown as a painter!
When we look back through the history of painters, most have stories and paintings of their adventures in travel, and shared their desire to both see and paint new experiences. Reflecting on my two month immersion in a new place has been very interesting to me. That uncomfortable period I was experiencing in the beginning was actually really good for me. I pushed myself, it helped me to focus on properties of painting I wanted to work on, my painting skills grew, along with my confidence - it also helped me to remember what my students go through at times. Bottom line, being uncomfortable at times is called growth! And to be perfectly honest with you, I think that’s called painting! Alas, here we are, spending our precious life doing this thing and wouldn’t change it for anything!
That uncomfortable zone in the end helped me to focus on elements of painting I needed and wanted to improve in my work - the main one, value!
I set out each day with one fundamental property to work on. And most days, I focused on my values and drawing. Like I share in my book, Color Relativity, value is a property of color! And value is vital in creating both the illusion of light, but also form! As Leonardo discovered years ago, shadow explains the form and light on an object.
I thought I would share with you my process (one of them anyway!) for studying light and shadow on the form. Painting is a series of problem solving!
My gracious hosts, David and Kristine in Sedona have one heck of a scene right from their driveway. I was awe struck by the beautiful shadows caressing the form as the clock of fleeting light was ticking . . .
After quickly but carefully blocking in my shadow shapes, I begin to block in the areas of light. Noting the temperature shifts as the planes shift around the form.
As the sun went down the shadows grew, I decided to go with it! Here, I began to break in subtle vibrations of reflected light into the shadows. Making certain to never allow any of my darks to be as light as the areas of light.
Time to get the sky in. Predominately blue yellow compared to the blue red shadows. BY, BR. (more on my strategy in Color Relativity). See finished piece above!
