Sterling Boat: Session 8

Sterling Boat - DETAIL

Sterling Boat - DETAIL - previous stage
See previous post about this painting here

Today I worked on the wax paper - another 4-hour session. It shows how the wax paper slowly starts to look like transparent crumpled material, instead of only gradations of paint.

Painting is 99% drawing by the way. I never believed it more than I believe it now. If you want to be a better painter, study more drawing. I am amazed by how the same principles I teach the most beginning drawing student are the principles I must hold as my mantra all day every day: Look for the large shapes, bracket the values, work large to small and from shadow up to light...

It even applies to color, because you can't build a believable range of hue without understanding value bracketing.

Drawing is learning when it is appropriate to focus your decision-making on a particular scale: solve large problems first and smaller problems later. Use the problems that appear at a small scale to find solutions to the larger-scale problems.

Learning to draw is the discipline of ONLY tackling the problems you can solve at THIS stage of the artwork, without getting distracted or confused.

I've come to believe that drawing (and artmaking in general) is about organizing your thought process, and nothing else at all.

Comments

[studiomysteries]

True! I think of art-making as acts of deliberately calibrated perception.

[Honor Martinez]

Your concepts regarding drawing are very interesting. I am trying to learn more and more about drawing and it is fun when I realize during a live model sketching that I am looking more than sketching or as I discovered three weeks ago, started drawing the negative spaces and angles. Thanks for sharing.

[Deborah Elmquist]

As I follow your demos and try to understand each concept, I came across your term "value bracketing." Can you explain that in more detail or is that the same a tiling?

[Michael dean Springer]

Yes I also want to hear more about how you establish your values and a description of 'value bracketing'. I know what you mean by value and I understand I think what 'value bracketing' is in photography, so I am thinking it is some how making sure values are contrasted off each other, placed on either side. Thanks for the demos, there wonderful.

[Sadie J. Valeri]

Hi, thanks for the comments - I explain more about value bracketing in the next post, hope that helps clear it up :)

-Sadie