Great Day

What a fantastic class today!  :)  I worked a tiny bit more on my big painting, but I mostly concentrated on creating washes and figuring out what happens when one wash is added to another.  SO MUCH FUN!  The bottom examples are of exercises we did for homework and in class.  We worked out some interesting compositions using only a circle, triangle and rectangle, then filled them in with wet in wet washes.  (The one I did for homework is on the right and as you can see I messed around with it quite a bit). Thinking about composition is such an important part of painting.  I used to tell my students that no matter how wonderful their skills, a poor composition could deter anyone from even looking at their painting.  I used to give them a list of "10 Rules to a Good Composition" making the task of designing a compelling composition more objective and hopefully easier. Rules in art can always be broken, however learning the rules first is imperative to initial success and understanding.  After practicing those rules, they can then be broken for more interesting and unique solutions.  Well . . . that's what I believe anyway.

Ok . . . enough blah, blah, blah-ing!  Oh . . . but one more thing.  The composition exercise alone was very worthwhile . . . but then adding the washes helped to practice that skill without the pressure of having to produce an actual still life painting.  So good!