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Friday, March 6, 2009

David in B&W


Last night, we were directed to start a new painting, just the head, using white as the highlight and a dark value (not necessarily black) and three values in between. I opted to just paint over Monday night's work. Mark never made it back to my easel after about 7:30, so I am not positive I got where he wanted me to go. I know I still have too many values; I struggled with how to make the hair read as hair and yet show it in the light withoug getting too involved with another value. Squinting made the hair join the shadow shape. He was empahazing with other artists to have most of the value shifts in the light and simplify the shadow shape value. He didn't say this is so many words but I am wondering if the point of this exercise is to get us to see that throught simplifying the light shape with few value shifts, we will then be able to do the form in the light through temperature change, not value shift. The other emphasis last night was to do small studies on Monday night; of the eye in particular. He said the eye is where you get the interest; the rest of the features are secondary. If you don't do good eyes, then there is no point to the exercise. I know that the eyes is where I definitely fall down, so I will take this to heart and just do eye studies on Monday night, and then go to a nose or mouth depending on how far I get. I put in David's eye in the last 10" and it did not help the overall study one bit. So the point is well taken.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shows you what I know! When I first opened this page and saw this painting, the eye is the first thing that caught my attention. It is, however, a very different eye from the previous painting you did of David so one or the other (or neither) may be the truer reflection of the subject.

victoriasart said...

David's eyes were more open on Thursday then on Monday night, hence one reason why they are different. I really did not see much of his eyeball on the first night.