May

9

Barn blind and herding dogs

Filed Under Judy Wood | Leave a Comment


For a few years now, I have been receiving the twice weekly Robert Genn postings on art and art related topics. Even though they are “painter-centric” and I’m anything but a painter, I find them generally to be interesting and insightful.

A recent one was titled “kalopsia” and discussed this term, which in essence describes the illusion of things appearing more beautiful than they really are. Of course one could go off on a tangent here about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, beauty being subjective, cultural, or whatever, but I’m not going to head off in any of those directions. What he was addressing was the inability of some artists to be able to see their own work as anything other than totally wonderful and beautiful, even when to the eyes of others it might have any number of areas where it is less than successful or even adequate. In the horse world, we would call this being “barn blind”. Same concept, only in this case it is our horses that are absolutely perfect beings with no possible faults of any sort to be found. Really, it’s like a description of the early stages of being in love.

I think I have experienced some artists who function in this state. They often produce quite stiff work with no noticeable merit or technical skill, but they are totally convinced that this is fine work of the highest order. Unless and until they are able to recognize their own flaws and shortcomings, it is unlikely they will ever improve their eye or their execution. Which is fine and is their right, as long as they don’t expect the rest of the world to go along with their assessment or to hand over large amounts of money for their work.

I have suffered from this to a minor degree over the years, off and on, with some of my non-photo artwork, although with the passage of a little time I have always become aware of, and often embarrassed by, the works that fell short of what I was trying to achieve. Funny how putting a masterpiece aside for a few months can cause a sharp drop in its quality. Kind of like those wonderfully fitting clothes that suddenly change size on you after they’ve been in the closet for a while.

With my photo work, on the other hand, I suffer from reverse kalopsia. Not sure if there is special term for that affliction. I go out and do whatever photo mission I’m bent on, then gleefully rush home and download the shots. Disappointment! They’re awful. What was I thinking? How on earth do I have the nerve to call myself a photographer? I can’t stand to look at them any more so they get relegated to a folder in the backup hard drive and I move on. Sometimes months or even a year or so will go by before I go back and revisit these shots. Strangely, they have often improved tremendously in the elapsed time, and many are quite good. Maybe it’s the aging process, like wine, that improves the product. Whatever it is, this is really a pleasant surprise and an encouragement for me to keep on keeping on.

Today’s shots are from one of those tucked away and avoided file folders. My backup drive is starting to get full, and rather than having to do the dance with Jim about needing a much larger external hard drive (which I do, and will get, but not just yet) I’m trying to delete the extraneous stuff, which is what caused me to go back through the build-up of the past year’s shoots.

The images today are from a sheep herding demo at Pioneer Days here last August, and from a subsequent shoot I arranged at the farm of the dog owner. She is a gifted and dedicated trainer of herding dogs and was generous in working her dogs for me so I could get some shots. The first shot is a photomontage of one of her border collies and the sheep. Shot number two features one of her young dogs, not yet in serious training when I was out there last fall, but showing signs of great intensity and the work ethic required for working herding dogs.

To read the Robert Genn “Kalopsia” article, check the link http://clicks.robertgenn.com/kalopsia.php

And I’d also like to put in a word for the latest posting on my daughter’s blog, which is also dog related. The link to her blog is http://margaretsymons.blogspot.com/ May 7 posting.

©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.

May

9

October Skies Part 5

Filed Under Carrie Lewis | Leave a Comment

May 8, 2008.

Here is an update on this painting. I have been working on it in small chunks of time and have managed to get some time into it almost every day since Monday.

But if you compare this image with the image in the post for Part 4, you probably won’t see a lot of difference.

The reason is that I’ve been doing a lot of the detail work that needs to be done in the background, before I can paint the foreground over it.

Yes, I did say paint ‘over it’.

Because trees particularly and all elements in general should give the illusion of appearing in front or behind other elements in the painting, some of them will need to be partially hidden. Some artists can plan out the visible parts and paint just those areas. I’ve tried that and, believe it or not, it’s a lot easier and a lot less time consuming for me to paint every layer of distance as though it were going to be 100% visible, then cover up part of it with the next layer forward.

Parts of the background cover up parts of the sky.

Parts of the middle ground cover up parts of the background and sky.

Parts of the foreground cover up parts of the middle ground, background and sky.

So with a painting like this one, I invariably end up painting a lot of areas that won’t be visible in the finished painting.

This detail of the painting illustrates my point. The bright green trees are in the middle ground. The dark green on the right is in the extreme foreground.

In order to create the look of trees overlapping trees and the completely random openings between leaves and leaf masses, I almost have to paint every leaf and leap mass.

Take a look at the bright green shapes against the sky. Can you imagine painting each of those sky holes individually? It’s much easier to paint the sky in one, unbroken layer, then add the tree shapes over it.

The same applies to the darker tree in the foreground relative to the brighter trees in the background and even the grass on the ground.

It does sometimes seem to take a long time to paint every layer completely, then come along later and cover up part of it.

But when trees turn out like these are, the time and effort are definitely worth it!

So each day I work, I add a little bit more mass and form to the trees, building them up slowly by tapping and dabbing paint onto a large canvas with a little, slightly misshapen sable brush.

I have to make a confession, though. The most difficult part of this part of the painting process is to touch the brush to the canvas once and then leave that brush stroke alone! There definitely times when one is better than two!

The colors being used are Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red and Cerulean Blue in the background or French Ultramarine Blue in the foreground.

Larger sable rounds and an occasional bristle flat brush have been used on the foreground trees; smaller sable rounds are being used on the background trees where leaf masses should look smaller.

A small sable round that is great for random detail but not much else is being used to paint the grass where shadows and highlights meet.

©Copyright 2008 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.

May

9

Mosiac Mural Panel "A Tribute To Peach"

Filed Under Michelle Grant | Leave a Comment


When I received my panel for the Le Cadeau Du Cheval -The Horse Gift I was excited that I received my first choice! When I originally chose it, I thought I knew what I was going to do with it. My first vision was to paint a generic palomino horse throwing its head up, a roughstock horse, one loaded with attitude. This is what I saw in the tonal values of the panel…but when the panel arrived, I had already been considering an image that meant a whole lot more to me emotionally. This mural will be travelling the World and I felt the need to pay tribute to our beloved pony Peach.Peachy Keen, fondly known as Peach, died in December after a heroic battle with colic and the surgery that followed. She and my daughter did so much together through all the years they shared. They were in pony club, participating in Prince Philip games, jumping, cross country, dressage and lots of trail riding. I wanted to capture the free spirit and Alpha mare attitude she had. She thought she was much larger than her 13.3hh stature. A Shetland/Appendix QH cross, Peach LOVED to jump! She could easily do a 3′6″ jumping course, and she and Laura made it to C level in Pony club. She loved it so much, that on numerous occasions she would jump while at liberty, or follow Laura across the cross country course jumping along side Laura.

So I dragged out all the photos I could find of Peach and Laura. It was hard to do, it bringing so many mixed emotions, so many great memories of the two of them and reminding me of the great loss.

I found the photo I was looking for, one of Peach the day we first brought her home to the farm where we boarded. We had set her loose with the herd, and she galloped, played and teased the geldings relentlessly, showing the character and attitude to which we would come to love about her!I found other reference shots I would use, wanting her in summer coat, not the motley coat of late spring. To use the eye and muzzle from another, and lighting from another to better suit the design of the panel. I fiddled with the drawing part for a couple of days off and on. Then the other night I started to paint Peach at about 11:00pm, just wanting to block in the basic tones and ended up putting about 2 hours into it. I will be sorry to send this little panel off and not keep it, but I want to share this wonderful little pony’s spirit with all who view it.

©Copyright 2008 by Michelle Grant. See original post here.

May

9

Le Cadeau du Cheval, the Horse Gift

Filed Under Sue E. Kroll | Leave a Comment

I got my panel! I am so excited. I can see horses in it that I could not see in the online pic of it. It looks like a herd, but then again I can see the foal laying there. Choices, choices!

The pic here is off the internet and is actually way too blue, in real life the panel is chestnut brown, gray and magenta.

I will let the panel sit across the room from my computer for a day or two before actually deciding on what to paint. I will post updates as I go along.

©Copyright 2008 by Sue E. Kroll. See original post here.