Week 4 of Get Your Paint On

Week 4 of get your paint on was all about Composition.  This week's lesson intimidated me more than the past 3 weeks.  I got nervous because in other areas of my  life I choose symmetry over asymmetry.  If there were two candlesticks and a bunch of flowers I would put the candle sticks on either side of the flowers rather than put the candlesticks side by side.I ended up with symmetry in this painting too and I am hoping for a lot of feedback from my classmates on how I could have made this painting more  interesting.

The subject matter came to me while I was in Michael's picking up more white paint.  After last week's paint mixing exercises I ran out of white.  I was walking through the aisles and came upon this beautiful display of birds and butterflies and beautiful soft pastel colors.  It was kind of like my artist date (I am reading Julia Cameron's book Walking in This World right now) and I was thoroughly enjoying the colors and ideas and just the infusion of spring everywhere.  Oddly enough though my idea was not really spring inspired and I was struck by the idea for paper lanterns somewhere between the wedding favors and scrap book paper aisles. 

I knew the painting would be at dusk/early evening but I was not too sure after that.  Then I had the idea to paint a green door in the background and paper lanterns strung in the foreground.  When I started sketching, a tree filled with lanterns came out instead. 

 

I did play it safe with this painting too and would like to learn to take more risks.  I let some of the paint drip for the grass and did have fun playing with that, but I still played that safe by using more water than paint to keep it more translucent.  Again, intentional and not happenstance.  I also had an idea for all kinds of creatures to be gathered under the tree.  Particularly I saw an owl in the tree, and a teddy bear and a baby elephant under the tree.  I sketched out the baby elephant and even drew one on the canvas but erased it and decided to leave the painting as is. 

I think the lesson for me was twofold this week. 1) Don't feel like you always have to produce something and turn it in on time.  In other words, be ok with taking risks that may mean not even having anything to turn in, or turning in something that looks real wonky that I am unhappy with. Take the risk when you have an idea.  2)  Go back to painting on paper.  I feel more open to taking risks on paper.  The canvas feels more permanent and also takes up more space and costs more money.  I like painting on the canvas because it does not warp and I feel like an artists painting on the canvas, but I see the value in the paper when it comes to taking more risks with my ideas.

Our assignment was to choose one or two principals of composition and use those in our work this week.  I honestly had no idea what they would be before hand though.  Did anyone else in class know what principals they would use before they started painting? 

The principals of composition that are found in this weeks painting are:

• Elements varied in space and size:  Trees have varying limbs and branches and the left and right side of the tree are not completely symmetrical.
• Warm or Cool Colors:  There are warm colors found in the lanterns and fireflies but because the intention is that the scene is at dusk I used primarily cool colors to give the impression of evening.

Week 4-Final