The highlight of the evening was Donnas’ large dessert scene, 48″ X 72″ that she had worked on for a few months. It was agreed that there was nothing more to say other than ‘congratulation’. It is a beautiful drawing with transitions of color and marks that give you the sense of the scene along with the appreciation of the piece as a work of Fine Art.
She shared her new drawing, roughly same size as the other, which is at its foundational drawing stage, so composition is critical. It was a view of a mountain side with vertical slates of rock that created a pile of rubble at the base of the mountain. Given the drawing layout and the past drawing’s success we are all looking forward to discussing this new drawing’s growth.
Thom had been very busy creating a variety of artwork. Posted here are these small mixed media works, approx. 14″ X 16″, which are whimsical and brilliant in color. We discussed the difficulty of painting on such a small format and the necessity of keeping the composition balanced. Some of these paintings were painted over a previous painting, but with the idea of keeping the under-painting as the general motif. This adds complexity to the attempt to resolve the two styles; the original painted fruit and the over-painted table. This is particularly apparent with the painting of persimmons. We discussed how the three dimensional representation of the fruit somehow clashed with the cubist nature of the table. All in all, we thought the transitions of light, the mark making and color composition made for a nice painting.
I showed both the October and November Shipley Nature Center pleinaire paintings, 14″ X 18″. I had some good comments regarding the need to balance the color over the whole motif. They were encouraging from the stand point of developing the series (see series Description ‘A Year at Shipley Center’) further (One more to go).
I also presented a painting in-work that continued with the compositional still life series (will add a series description soon) The painting is at stage two (basic values and color structure) of development, and the group liked what they saw, is 36″ X 48″. Some attention will need to be made to the object’s edges. This provided me with enough input help develop the painting further.
These critiques are not meant to give each other a ‘pat on the back’, but to give honest criticism, avoid ‘niceties’ and help to develop us all as Artist; I believe this was achieved.
If you are an Artist, and live within the Orange County area, please feel free to contact me and discuss attending the critique. We enjoy growing our circle of friends.
Ron,
That was a nice write up of our critique last month. I appreciate the attention you’ve given our group on your blog. As always, yours and other’s critique of my work is invaluable.
Donna
On my small “text art” paintings, one of your good comments to me concerned adding text as questionable in general and how distracting it is to composition. It can become illustrational painting, as some of Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters were. In his works the figures generally claim first attention to viewers and the message complements. I have gone back to add and modify elements of my works to try to do the same. Note that because I am framing them with thick gold leaf frames, I also shifted some of the warm colors by mixing in nacreous gold – adds glow and complements the frames.
On the “Four Persimmons” painting, I would flatten the fruit more, but I wanted Linda’s contribution to remain a part of this. Call it a post-modern mix.