Artistic Truth - You find cool things when you tidy your space.

This is my current Rule of Life. Who knew, right?

My sweet, yet very thrifty, husband bought me a new computer desk. It’s a smaller version of his, where the whole top is a mousepad. He uses it for gaming, I use it for, well, my mouse. Even with my laptop, I want a wireless mouse. I hate that little pad, but I guess I’d get used to it if I had to. Fortunately, I don’t.

ANYWAY. I had to clean up all of my art supplies that had migrated to the center of the study when I moved my easel to a room with more light. It didn’t take long, only about thirty minutes or so. (My second Rule of Life would be – Things never take as long as you think they’ll take, so just do them already and save yourself the procrastination pain.)

While tidying up, putting paints with paints, books with books, drawing tablets. . . well, you get it, I’m sure – I found the photographs I used for some of my paintings. I have a file called Photos to Paint – catchy, I know – and whenever I take a good one or see one that speaks to me, I save it there, then print it out later when I’m ready to paint.

I thought I’d put some here so I remember the painting process and original photos.

One weekend in August, 2016, my mother wanted to take me to one of her favorite places, Chattooga Belle Farm, and the drive there was beautiful! And the vista from Chattooga Belle – well, check out that website. It’s a knockout and I had a great time sketching while waiting for our coffee. (Chattooga Belle is a farm, event center and has a small restaurant.)

On the way, I saw the view above left, and insisted we stop so I could walk down the road and take some shots. I took several, but this one was the most interesting to me. (See the vertical below.) I liked the fence and the gate, even though a lot of artists told me NEVER put a fence in your shot, it is not good foreground material. The reason I stopped was that incredible shadow. And the light on part of the tree, as well as that spiky piece of grass. Really, a striking scene, the sunlight was just so.

After working on the painting for a week or so, I got very frustrated with the shadow. The color seemed wrong, and I could tell that part of the shadow was crisper than others, but couldn’t peg how to get it like I saw it. Finally, I put it up on David Boyd’s group Facebook page – he has one for all of the students that have taken his seminars in Newnan – and Roger H. helped me nail it. (Roger was in the first class I took at Three Hearts Farm, he drove down from Greeneville, TN with his cute dog. We were in the same boat – we wanted to paint and create art, but Roger was in his sixties, I was in my fifties, and both of us had tough day jobs. Hah! Kindred spirits.) Roger has since gone on to paint a LOT in his retirement and has shown at several galleries. He’s an inspiration for sporadic me. I paint when the mood hits, but really, to get better I should be painting every chance I get.

I felt pretty confident with the painting, even entered it in the Art Guild show. I titled it June in Georgia. (Yes, I know it was actually August, but June in Georgia seemed to sing with those lovely soft G sounds.) I didn’t win anything, but I felt like an artist just having something framed and on the wall. I invited some good friends from the military post, and they brought their kids for opening night. Their ten year old son was very disappointed that I didn’t win or place, and made no bones about the fact that my painting was HIS favorite. Which was almost better than a placing ribbon. Almost. 😉

Out of all of my paintings, this is the one that EVERYONE wants. But it’s my husband’s absolute favorite, so it’s his. We have it on the wall in the living room, and it’s become a bit of a conversation piece. “I LOVE that painting. Where did you get it? Wait, YOU painted THAT!?! Wow.” Or words to that effect. I try to take comfort that they really liked it, and sort of gloss over the stunned surprise that I produced it. (Who am I kidding, I’m proud as punch of that thing, sorry about the false modesty.)

I decided to paint the same scene, but from a vertical photo as a retirement gift for a good friend at work. You can see that it’s not as free and interesting as the first one, but still attractive, I think. The gate is better, but not as real as the first one, too pretty.

And it doesn’t have the sweep of the other one. Something about that tree taking up the majority of the space, with the shadow underneath, is just BETTER. And the longer line of background trees on the right of the first one pulled the eye better. I am still learning how to make paintings from photos into paintings instead of just copies. On the up side, I nailed that little bright green area of grass in the front left and halfway down the road.

At nude drawing class this week, I noticed a painting that the artist had recently finished. He had the photo next to it, clearly a commission of a wedding exit from a church. Over the bride and groom was a church window, with lots of space between their heads and the bottom of the window. In the painting, he’d pulled down the window and shortened the space in the view behind. Ceiling came down, window was in view right about their heads and it made the composition BETTER. There’s the trick, I think. I mean, I love painting plein air – except my easel is pretty bulky, I have an old Julian easel – so I think photos are in my future this winter. I’ll have to print them out, look at them for a few days and figure out what to move, what to take out, what to make more dramatic rather than just copying the picture.

Fortunately, THIS photo on the road to Chattooga Belle Farm had the perfect composition and my eye recognized it. So, a good start, I think. Here are some shots of the work in progress.