Fourth day of a five day workshop

This has been a busy week! All frustration is gone (I realized I have been using that word a lot lately, so no more....I have banished it from my vocabulary!)

The first photo was taken during the morning demo. Carol believes in doing what she calls the most "vulnerable" colors first, or the ones most likely to be contaminated with other colors. She started with the pale yellow of the apples. Her canvas is toned with umber, but that varies according to what she is painting. She sketches in with Burnt Umber.

We are learning lots in the workshop. Carol is a good teacher and has plenty of great information. Her paintings are amazing and if I can just do is 10% as well as she does, I will be happy. I have enjoyed her demos every morning. I did finally get a couple of apples done myself that looked respectable. The big difference between the way she paints and the way I do is that her paintings are very planned out, while mine tend to be pretty spontaneous and inituitive. Planning works better!

The painting in this second photo was done this morning and it is about 3/4 done here. It might be my favorite of the four she has done so far. On each of her paintings, the composition is well thought out and every brush stroke is considered, mixed and applied carefully. Most times she remixes her paint after every stroke and adds more medium. She paints very thinly and the medium spreads the paint nicely. She knows exactly what color she wants and she knows where she is putting it and why. That is the biggest thing I am taking away from this workshop, and when I use the information it should have an impact on my paintings. I remember in my workshop with Tim Deibler, he also stressed that no two brushstrokes be the same color, and here it is again. It must be something I should do more :)

The F-word I really dislike

Frustration!

I don't use the other f-word at all because I think it is an ugly word, but this one is almost worse! I find the frustration that comes from painting difficult to handle as there is more emotion involved when I paint. In my business career, it is easy to say "next" and move on when something doesn't work out. I can let the lost sale or listing go and move on to the next one, but there is more of "me" involved in my artwork and the frustration is harder to handle. It is also easier for me to let it spread into other things and affect them too. In my business career I have always been able to put the frustration into a box and keep it there. I will have to learn to do the same thing here.

So what was the frustration this time? I entered two paintings in a show, and discovered after entering them that they were too big for the size restrictions. My own fault for not reading the entrance requirements more carefully. I knew the paintings were small enough, but didn't think about what the frames added to them in square inches. A lesson learned the hard way.

(Another frustration now that I have uploaded the photo....not a good image! I had to lift it from my website as the original is on my computer at home and I am in Arizona at the moment, about to attend a weeklong painting workshop. )

I will use the lesson to my benefit from now on, but was disappointed that these two paintings, painted expressly for the show, were not able to hang. The same art center has a juried show in the spring and once they put the prospectus online and I know the requirements, I will see about entering them then.

Next!