Friday, September 6, 2013

Corrections and Adjustments


There are many books about painting. Many of which have more or less specific directions which are not very useful. One can look to Cennino's Il Libro dell'Arte and find instructions regarding the painting of gangrenous flesh, or flesh pierced by a spear. Alternatively Doerner's The Materials of the Artist contains a description of Goya's method. Step 7 is "Easily and deftly draw the contours and refine them with loose reflected lights." That covers a lot of ground and, like Cennino's overly specific advice, doesn't help much.

Every painting reaches a point where there are no more steps. Ted Seth Jacobs, a draughtsman and Atelier instructor, has said that the greatest teacher is the blank page: every mark you make is right or we wrong based on its relationship to previous marks. It takes eyes to see, but it's all there on the canvas. In a sense the painting paints itself. 

So this is where I am. The grisaille has been painted, the coloring established, but from here on out it's me and the canvas, hand to hand. Each day I take stock of what I've painted the day before, and plan the day to come. I frequently have to adjust the drawing. By that I mean the placement of forms and the relationship of parts to the whole. In this you can see the lines I've drawn to modify her arms. I moved her shoulder down the other day, and if I don't adjust the position of her arms she'll look like gumby. Slowly it takes shape.

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