Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Newspaper Man



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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