A PAINTER'S JOURNEY

I am enamored with the Anne Blair Brown’s  video; 

“A Painter’s Journey”. This is the painter I want to be when I grow up so I’d better get cracking.

The best thing is that I am identifying the things I am doing wrong. These things have been pointed out in other artist’s videos but I guess I am now inspired enough to make changes out of my comfort zone. 

• Anne places her palette in front of her easel so she does not get up nose close to the canvas.

• Anne prefers to paint from live room interior designs. She looks for the play of light and shadow to inspire her. ( She does photograph her subjects as well)

*To my surprise she does not put a background color on the white canvas to begin with. She uses a large brush with yellow ochre to paint in the large shapes and that serves as her background color. 

• Anne uses dots (notes) of color whose sole purpose is to add sparkle or interest to an area. I had always over done these colors as if I painting the barn door. Good to know.

• Get out some of my equipment that I never got around to using; red view finder, value chart, big brushes and a little courage.

• I always  touted myself as an “a la prima” painter which was a kind way of saying that I was lazy and lacked the discipline to pre mix my limited palette for the color combinations that would be used in each specific painting. Thought you could mix a little of this and that if it all came from the limited palette. Wrong!

*Spend more time preparing the design by making a simple value study or notan of the subject.

• Anne has the colors relate to each other in harmony by using a “mother” color then pushing it warm or cool as needed. I need to pay more attention to warm and cool paints.

• Step back, then turn the painting up side down. I do step back but I always forget to turn it up side down and when I do I don’t know what I am looking for. Learning a new trick is a good thing.

*Only bring the focal point into detail and let the rest be more ambiguous.

Three plus hours of Brown’s quiet understated demonstrating and teaching.  Even her voice soothes me.

Mary Ellen