|
Jeff's observation is well-taken, about the four artists in fisticuffs over who's "right." I was watching one of Gregg Kreutz' DVDs last night and when he mentioned the [Name deleted to avoid fisticuffs] medium he uses, I had to smile to myself and say, ha!, I'm glad [Name deleted to avoid lawsuits] isn't watching this. Same with the binder in your oil paints, the number and size of brushes, the rodent the bristles were plucked from, this pigment 100% good, that one 100% bad, the music you're playing in the background, and the horse you rode in on.
I've come to think more than a little of all of it has to do with one of two conditions: (1) not nearly enough fiber in the diet, or (2) way too much.
By the same token, I know that there are posted images that I've tried to get going in the right direction with a few suggestions, knowing full well that there are others out there, usually with much more experience than I have, whose suggestion might be, "Throw it away, you should never have started this," or "I've already seen this kind of thing so many times, I don't know why you're doing another one." Now I might try to head someone off at the pass if they're showing us an unsuitable photo reference, but once somebody has a piece under way, I feel my subjective preferences are quite beside the point. They want to finish the painting and have it turn out as well as possible. That's not so much to ask -- unless you ask all four of those [Unnamed] artists.
I had a plein air instructor in Australia once, who wouldn't let somebody just give up on a piece that wasn't working. "We aren't here to start over," she'd say. "We're here to fix what's on the canvas."
That's a good enough reason to drop by and say, "Try softening the edges over there," or "Think about how these shapes interrelate." Or to paraphrase Gregg Kreutz, "You're getting sucked into the middle-tone vortex."
I'm going to hang onto that last one. I think there's a critique out there just waiting for it, and I figure I'm the guy.
|