Long answer: First, I procrastinate. I am not good about evaluating my paintings. One reason is simply discipline or the lack thereof. I haven't made it a priority. The other is that most of the time I feel like I am seeing more with my brain than my eyes, so I don't trust my ability to evaluate myself. Instead, I will look at a piece right after I'm done and usually I'll look at it the next day when I take a picture to post here, but both times it's in a cursory manner. If I ever look further, it's mostly to reassure myself that there is some resemblance between my source material and the final result.
I am thinking about doing a weekly or bi-weekly self-evaluation where I look at what I've drawn or painted since the last time. I don't want to make it a big, super formal deal. I may or may not write about it here, but I think it would help me improve.
When I look Roz Stendahl's drawing class two years ago, she was a big proponent of self-evaluation. She referred to the "editing eye" and also encouraged participants to focus on one thing they liked about a piece and one thing they would like to improve upon.
In just thinking about evaluating myself, I know I need to do better at focusing on the value shifts and making the lightest lights lighter (say that 3 times fast!). When I've been drawing out a new painting, I've noticed that I tend to draw features more than the value shifts, so that is something to think about. Plus, I think I also need to use a smaller brush (size 8 rather than size 10 and maybe a size 6 for 6 inch paintings. .
I have not been painting as much as I would like. I am in full gardening mode and there is just so much to do! I didn't anticipate having to build fences to keep the rabbits out of my vegetable garden, but it became apparent that I could have happy rabbits or happy vegetables.
Here's the latest.
#334 - Desk Cat - 8" x 8" - paper |
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