I have barely started reading the book, but by page 20, there are some good, concrete examples about organizing and simplifying a scene. Much of this includes creating a value sketch with 3 values, massing shapes together, and using artistic license. On a micro level, there’s a good example about capturing values accurately in each element contained in a drawing, but not being too detailed. The writing and visual example drove home the point that when the various elements are broken into too much detail where each level of value appears in each element, it makes things too busy and awkward. Duh. However, this surprised me because I never thought about it this way. I’ve been thinking (and struggling) with just trying to see and capture the values I see. It makes more sense that this is not enough and why you need to edit. There are also good examples about massing shapes together.
However, my head really wanted to explode when Patti touched upon taking artistic license in a macro way. One of the paragraph headings says it all that "Some Scenes May Require Significant Changes". In the example, it shows a picture of a farm house and barn on a hill which includes trees and a sky. In her value sketch, she does things like changing and lowering the angle of the hill, putting more emphasis on the barn, adding a silo, and changing the values to make it all more interesting.
What!?! All of this is blowing my little rule-based, detail-oriented mind. It helps that the book goes on to say “If you are new to this process, be patient with yourself. Learning to simplify values is not easy, nor is it easy to teach".
I have been in a drawing drought and I think this book is my way forward. When I hit a plateau and couldn’t figure out how to proceed or improve, I mostly stopped drawing. In the last week or two, I’ve picked up a pen occasionally and done some very quick sketching and it felt good. Drawing in connection with painting, even with using grids, and the painting itself has meant my drawing skills did not completely vanish. In fact, I think I see some improvement. It’s similar to when I wanted to learn to juggle 4 balls, many years ago. Occasionally, I would try, but it never clicked. One day, I picked up 4 balls and I could do it. I think this happened because my brain was working out the details in the background. A little of this happened with my drawing, although I can’t really recommend avoiding an activity as a path to improvement.
When I stopped drawing daily, I think it was because of fear, which started in Roz's drawing class. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great class and I am so glad that I took it. Things beyond the line drawing did not stick and thumbnail sketches really freaked me out, since they are all about shapes, valued, and evaluating composition. Their importance made sense, but I was afraid of them and never embraced doing them. Since that time, I’ve danced around the issue. Her classes come with lifetime access, so I will loop back in the future.
Anyway, in the book, Patti talks about the importance of doing value sketches when she says “As artists, we make decisions visually, not theoretically”and she talks about artists as “visual composers”. I had a deep, visceral, “nope, that’s not me” reaction when I read that. All of this has helped me realize that I don't process things visually either very well or very easily. In talking to my hubby about this, he expressed some disagreement with this. I think for an accountant, I am a visual person. However the level needed to draw and paint does not come naturally to me and it can make me feel very tired very quickly.
As a result of all of this thought and melodrama, I have decided to embrace what this book is offering me. I am committing to a 30-day self challenge where I do at least one value sketch, limited to representing 3 to 4 values, focusing on massing shapes and trying to eliminate detail. If time permits, I'll do more than one version. My guess is that the first version will be mostly about capturing "reality". In subsequent versions, I would like to practice altering reality in order to try and create a better composition. My subject matter can come from life or from photos. I am both scared and excited about this. I am trying to embrace that it's going to be rough going, especially at first. Plus, I expect that it's going to break my painting and drawing for awhile. On the painting front, I am going to try and do a value sketch prior to painting and use it to, hopefully, make better decisions. I'm not sure how much or how often I'll post the value sketches.
When I went to do my first value sketches on Wednesday, my brain completely froze. I selected an outdoor scene and gave it a try, but got frustrated and didn't finish. Still, I got that first awkward try behind me. In the early evening when I had several minutes waiting for a friend to pick me up for a Fringe Festival show, I started a value sketch of my water bottle. I approached it as drawing the value shapes, not the bottle.
The next morning, I abandon an unfinished 4" x 6" painting of the cabin dock and canoe at sunset. Later in the day, I did a quick value sketch of the scene. I even edited out a lot of detail in the scene. The canoe and the water around much of the canoe were both the darkest dark, so it's hard to distinguish the two, but I left them as I saw them.
Today, I started to redraw this same scene on as 5" x 7" painting, since it's August and I haven't done my August Art 4 Shelter painting yet.
This evening, I spent 3-4 minutes doing a value sketch of my hubby's arm and part of his torso as he was sitting in a chair.
I'm not sure where all of this will lead, but after feeling stuck, especially in my drawing, it's good to have a new way to move forward.
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