The Little Things.

This is just a quick post to chat about what I feel a beginning artist should focus on when trying to paint.  Beginning the process of looking for color in objects is important and you don't want to overwhelm yourself by attempting a landscape or a difficult scene when first starting to paint. Try just rendering simple objects in grey scale first and then move on to color.  Learning to really look at shapes and colors while painting instead of thinking of the actual object i.e. tree, mountain, person etc..., is important.

Here are some marbles I painted 4 years ago.  I tried not to think about the fact that they are marbles and I just looked for every little change in color and applied that small area of paint.  I didn't draw a circle and fill it in.  I formed the circle eventually through applications of color.   I tend not to like drawing the outline of an object and then painting it because it makes me focus too much on the object and not the colors.  I instead look for shapes of color and light.

Try this is you are new to painting.  You don't want to outline an object, you want it's form created by the brushstrokes and colors you put down.

Sometimes it makes me a little crazy now as I look at the world.  I tend to see too much in shapes and color now.  A lake is not a lake anymore... it's fifty shades of blue.  But then if I hadn't have trained my mind to think like this, I wouldn't be able to paint realistically.

I hope this helps someone, try painting marbles or small colorful objects.

Have a wonderful week.  I'm off to paint blades of grass, talk about 50 shades of green ; )!
BEXX