One of the artists whose work I am currently drooling over is Karin Jurik. One of the things I really love about her work is how she makes her colors just punch, for lack of a better term. My own paintings seem to often come out kind of muddy and dull. Part of this is I am still trying to master color mixing, and part of this is that I am constantly afraid to bring too much color to the table and make things garish.
So, one of the things I am working on a bit to help, is art challenges from one of Karin's Blogs. She is no longer doing the challenges, but I have been mining the archives to see past topics. What she did was post a picture, and have people submit their interpretation of the picture. Nine times out of ten, I prefer her rendition to any of the others, but there have been some really beautiful alternatives. I'm using the pictures to work on my own painting, and then comparing what I like about it vs. what she did. It is a fantastic self-teaching tool.
Ha, but as soon as I have my own photo, I still feel like I have been dropped in the middle of the ocean with no paddle. One great example is my last entry, Respite from Prayer. I had the scene all sketched out, but as soon as I put the first color on the panel, I almost froze. That one was quite the struggle. I want to go back and do it again, hopefully to learn how to do it differently.
In any case, things are going well, I'm learning so much. I found another artist's blog, 120 Paintings, and I really loved his concept. He had been told by another artist that "it takes 120 bad paintings to know something about painting." I am totally working through that right now. My paintings aren't bad, they are so much better than they were even a few years ago. But I still have such a long way to go. It is exciting and daunting, all at the same time.
Okay, enough with the novel. Happy Hump Day!
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