Time Passages

[Debra Norton]

Pat,
I agree with Tom too. Do both. That's what I do at school. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings we work on the figure - either in charcoal, black and white paint, or color, depending on our progress. But EVERY Tuesday and Thursday is reserved for pencil figures, so we're drawing constantly. I've seen great improvement in my drawing skills and I know it just comes from all the practice I'm getting. What about splitting your time like this?

Last fall I made color mixing charts of our palette and found that to be a great help in my color mixing. (I think they were in the pictures I sent you a while back.)

As for the best route to go from drawing to painting - this is the way I've been taught - and the longer I'm here, the more I see the benefit of it: We start out in charcoal, to learn drawing, value, and edges. Then we go to black and white paint to continue drawing, value, edges, and add paint handling. Then we go to color in still life, while we're still in black and white on the figure. Once we get used to color in the still life we go to portrait and figure. Now that I'm working in color I can definitely see why we're taught this way. I can easily imagine how I'd be painting if I had just jumped right into it without going through the process. I very well remember all the piles of mud I made 20+ years ago, before I gave it up in frustration.

I can relate to the "time running out" you talked about. That's why I decided to go to school. It's also why we move halfway across the country to do it. I knew I'd need to be away from the old home commitments to get the time I needed. I also know when I go back home I'm going to have to train my family and friends to see me as a working woman, rather than a hobby artist.

Another thing we do that you might find helpful is memory drawing. We do it two ways. I have a notebook with silhouette shapes, going from very simple (a three sided shape) to complex (three ballerinas in tutus). We use these shapes to draw from memory. First we put tracing paper over the shape, then put a plumb line on it somewhere, and maybe a dot or two depending on the complexity of the shape. Then look at it, measuring with your eyes, pencil, or whatever - can't use rulers. Then we put away the shape and complete the drawing from memory. I confess that I tend to go in spurts of doing and not doing this. The first thing they had us do was just learn to see an inch. And then different lengths of line. You can make the shapes yourself, I've done it when I got bored with the handouts.

The other kind of memory drawing is where the model gets up for five minutes and we can look but not draw. Then she gets down and we can draw. When she's on the stand we have to cover our paper. We repeat this process for three hours, using the last 20 minutes to fix our mistakes. This really helped me to see where I wasn't looking! You could do something like this with objects rather than the figure.

Sorry, I didn't mean to go on so long! Hope this gives you some ideas.
Deb

[Patricia Joyce]

Tom, Enzie, Debra,
Thank you for your advice. I guess I will just split my time between drawing and painting which is kind of what I have been doing. It takes me a whole day for painting because I mix Marvin's palette and that still takes me a couple hours. But, I really am struggling with putting the color down and getting it to look right . . . Enzie you and I can scream together. I look forward to meeting you in a few weeks!! And Janel too. Val Warner will be there also and she is a blast to have in workshop. Should be a good group.

Debra I truly appreciate your input and value your suggetions. I like the idea of memory drawing and have to try it out. I am bad about carrying a sketchbook around but go in spurts. Currenlty I am in sketching mode every day and it does help me see everything around me. Why do we let this habit go so easily?? I guess it is like exercising, huh?

I have a couple of wash-ins completed, maybe I will take them further with just black and white. It is a good idea and I think will be less intimidating. Perhaps the best way to spend the next couple weeks before the workshop.

I appreciate all your advice. Tom, you are my quintessential Nike commercial and just what I needed to read!!!

[Michele Rushworth]

It takes me a whole day for painting because I mix Marvin's palette and that still takes me a couple hours.

Once it's mixed (assuming you don't use up all the paint in one day) can't you put the palette in the freezer so you're not laying it out each day?

[Patricia Joyce]

If I mix the palette on Saturday I can use it Sunday and sometimes Monday, by putting the box with paints in water. But I have never tried freezing the paint. How long would that last? Often I can't get a whole day to paint until Monday and then it would be five more days before I am back at it. Would the paint last five days?? Of course, Marvin, would say, "mix the palette each time you paint, to improve your color mixing abilities"!

[Michele Rushworth]

I can save paint in the freezer for at least a week.

I paint almost every day and squeeze out new paint as I use it up so it's hard to tell how long it lasts, exactly. However, the colors I don't use up very quickly last a long, long time. Paints that dry quickly in the open air also dry more quickly in the freezer (like umbers). Slow drying paints (like Gamblin's Alizarin Permanent) last longer since they dry more slowly in the open air too.

Two hours a day to mix up a full palette of colors sounds like a huge amount of time -- and an awful lot of money scraped off at the end of each day.

You can greatly improve your color mixing abilities by using that two hours each day to actually paint!

[Allan Rahbek]

Mixing the paint is a very good training, but I would not spend two whole hours every day on it.

I believe that Marvin said, in his post about his palette, that he have tubed all his values of Neutral Gray, Yellow Ocher, Venetian Red and Indian Red.. to save that time for painting in stead.

I have bought some 40 ML tubes and am going to mix and tube three of the values of each color, value 3, 5 and 7 on the 9 value scale. That will save a lot of time and I can easily mix the rest of the values, from these, when I need to.

I think that having them in tubes will be more economic since you can squeeze a bit out at a time.

I do not add drying medium to the mixtures before I have to use the colors. Then I take a bit of the paint with the knife and place it a little aside the place and mix dryer into it.

Allan

[Patricia Joyce]

Allan,
Does is take any other special "tools" to tube the paint? How do you pinch the bottom? I am definately considering doing the same. Where to you get the tubes, someplace I can order online? Or would I have to come to Denmark - not a bad idea after all!!