Warning - You Are Entering An Awkward Learning Phase

This is a warning to myself.

I decided to paint the comorant on a log. I tried to paint this last week in class and got myself to a frustrating place. For this new attempt, here is the value sketch.

Here is the painting.

#221 - Comorant On Log - 6" x 6" - hardboard 

My values are still off on this one, but it's better than the first attempt. The values are off the most in the water around the bird. My brain just goes into overdrive with trying to sort out values and colors at the same time, plus trying to figure out paint strokes to evoke shape and pattern. This is not a bad thing. While I wish I was farther along in what I know and what I can do, this is where I am at, currently.

One interesting thing I noticed this week is that I can't solely rely up on the IPad application, Notanizer, to help with values. This app has a function where it will show a picture with only 4 values. When I paint from pictures, I've been relying upon it, heavily. It's really helped when I am painting one subject (usually a cat) with a fairly simple background. For a more scene with more than two elements to it, 4 values is not enough. For example, the darkest water and the dark parts of the bird show up as the darkest dark in the app. In reality, the darkest parts of the bird are much darker. Duh, of course. The app still does help me "see" the lightest lights.

Speaking of values and perception, yesterday, it was interesting to see how my eyes captured a scene out a window versus what the camera saw or what my eyes saw through the camera.

I think all of this leaves me in an awkward learning phase. While I'd rather end up with paintings where I like more things about them than I don't, that's not the direction I am currently headed. I have mixed feelings about that. Of course, I would like to end up with something that I mostly like, but what I really find most compelling about painting is figuring out the process and the various problems which come up along the way. Plus, I feel like you have to be willing to paint (and also post, since I want to document the full journey) a lot of awkward paintings in order to paint better ones later.

For example, and as a reminder to myself, this was the cabin sunset in September 2016.

This was the cabin sunset in March 2018.

I believe if I keep trying, thinking and evaluating my work, and getting feedback from time to time I can continue to improve.