I'm going to post at least two paintings a week...minimum. Most will be 5"x 7" to keep things small, but like the first one...they will vary. I'll be including a link to Ebay to bid on these. Any that don't sell will be designated on this blog, and can be purchased for the minimum of $100.00
Labels: condiment tray, spice rack
posted by mick mcginty at 7:30 PM
I've been an artist since age 5, when I remember drawing an airplane better than my older brother. It was a bi-wing with a propeller, (not that I'm that old... it was 1957 and it was a racing plane), and it was encouraging because up until then, it was the only thing I could remember doing better. I kept at it, and now nearly 50 years later I'm still trying to improve my creative process. Now I realize you never get better than anyone else... just more unique to your own style, and become the best painter you can be.
8 Comments:
This is wonderful! I love the looseness of the paint, yet you still capture the scene very realistically. May I ask what your process is for painting? For instance, do you grid the drawing, or do you just start painting freehand? Do you use tools like a straight-edge to get the straight lines?
Luscious! How do you get that quality from a photo?
This is one of those paintings where I marvel over how you make a mundane subject such a pleasure for the eye. I love how the sun and shadow works and how it drums up the experiences I've had in such a spot.
This is really nice. The confident brushstrokes in the larger view are great. I've been enjoying your blog
Hello Carol,
My process is a very lazy one, but turned out to be really necessary since we have moved to the desert.
I travel to different locations and photograph as much as I can. In photoshop later, back in my studio I refine alot of my shots. I also adjust color and contrast and can even get shadows to open up in the Light/shadow correction tool. After adjusting, I also crop to the size of the panel I'm paining on which is the one thing that changes from painting true plein air. Out in the open air, the scene is all around you, and you need to crop into a scene ...in your mind, or with another tool, to help from bringing in everything to your painting. When I crop, I get rid of all the tempting elements and I basically have a photographic image of my painting. It's up to me to just paint all the negatives where they should be, and all the positive elements where they should be.
I have the photo displayed on a 30 inch Apple display screen. The color is fairly accurate, but nothing like what the light would be like looking at the scene for real. I recommend this technique for cold winter days or hot summer months, and if you can get out to paint from life, that would be the best.
I paint directly from the screen without any grid system drawn out. The lay in sketch has always ben my most favorite part of any painting. The lay-in and the first 15 minutes of establishing colors and shapes is always the most fun. Some of the later deliberate brave strokes can be full of anguish, except for those few paintings when those strokes seem to flow off the brush easier. It helps to make confident strokes if the drawing or lay-in is accurate. When all the landmarks line up correctly and space relationships are good, then it becomes a matter of just mixing the right values in the right hue, and just laying them down.
I've had this life-long problem of putting in to much information or not putting on enough paint, but I'm slowly become more generous with the paint, and have learned to let a brush mark represent a shape or object instead of adding two three or four more strokes to define the object. It's a constant battle to not start rendering instead of letting the art of brushwork providing the interest.
Thanks for the comments and the questions, and thanks for looking at my work.
Mick
I haven't been here in too long. STUNNING work, as always. Love this one.
I love this still life Mick. It is so interesting to see your style applied to this type of a still life. I hope you do more in this genre!
Austin
Thanks for describing your process. It was wonderfully informative.
Don
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