Follow the Form
I am starting to realise how important it is to keep returning to white objects as they allow you to see clearly the colours reflected on the object. Colours that may occur based on the warmth of the light, the colour of the surface upon which an object may sit or a wall colour in close proximity. These reflected colours do exist on a coloured object but are less obvious and easily missed. It is the keen eye that sees these colours and without considering them when painting, an object may appear cut and pasted onto the painting as opposed to embedded within it. I wonder if people who analyse photographs for evidence of photoshop/ insertion of objects that weren’t actually there consider the reflection of colours surrounding an object. If I ever meet such a person I will have to ask.
Any way moving right along as I only have time for a quick blog and that was a side-track in my mind as I put my coffee cup down on a green towel. I spent the last two days with Jac painting a skeleton of a horse’s head. We began, Grisaille styles with a monochromatic flake white and transparent red earth which captured the underlying warmth of the bone resting on a red cloth. What I really want to say about this piece other than the fact it’s not finished is that my biggest lesson during the last two days was Jac saying, ‘follow the form’, I am sure she has said the same many times before but it was only now that it truly clicked. I had been so focused on half closing my eyes to recognise the tonal variations in a two-dimensional way that I was ignoring the shape of the object. It goes back to what I was saying in a previous post about Haptic drawing, 'feeling' the object, but this is about feeling without actually touching the object, a kind of a virtual haptic experience. When I stopped to consider the weight, the form, the contours and crevices around the jaw, cheek bone, eye socket as I moved the brush around the canvas, it brought the whole experience to life and my painting was better for it. I think that’s all I’d like to say on the matter at the moment, until next time….Dx
