When to Sign a Painting?

 

                               

I've always loved the challenge of painting the human figure, but these paintings always seem to need more work.  With a still life or a landscape, the point at which I'm comfortable with adding a signature is often clear.       As I downloaded these photos from my camera, I could see so much that needed to be fixed.  For these two paintings, the deadline of an art festival next weekend is my only incentive to sign and frame.  If someone loves them and buys them as they are, I will be very happy, but next week they will probably be taken out of the frame and tweaked a bit.  I'm fortunately meeting with a group of fellow artists tonight for "critique night."  I'm sure my list of fixes will be enhanced after their insights

A Helping Hand

SOLD

You don't have to go too far to find a good subject to paint.  For homework, I had to create two paintings of my hand using a reductive method with burnt umber.  My first two sketches were my hand in my lap and then in holding it up in the air, but they were pretty boring.  I wanted something that someone would actually find interesting.  With the timer on my camera and my reflective light, I took about 30 shots.  I spent about as much time setting up the lighting and running back and forth to the camera as I did painting.  Actually, it was more time painting, but the time spent on the setup made a big difference.  I love tonal paintings and I'm always scared that I will ruin a good tonal study with color.  If I don't make a mess of these two, I'll post the finished paintings.

Critiques Welcome

Pumpkin and Grapes
SOLD 

All artists love the positive feedback on their work, but I also love good criticism, if delivered kindly.  I've been meeting occasionally with few members of a local art club for "Critique Night" but have not been able to make it for a while.   I'm hoping to create a "Cyber Critique" from anyone who might read my blog.

I've been working on a lot of still lifes (still lives?) lately and have two that I consider almost done but something is missing.  I've been looking at them for a while and I think I know what they need, but I'd love some feedback from my artist friends (and strangers).

Please feel free to add comments on either of these two paintings.  (I know I forgot the stem on the pear)

Modest Pear
SOLD 

Anthropology of Color Theory

I’m taking a course in Color Theory and never thought it would incorporate history, biology, and physics.  One of the sites below shows a time-line of color, from prehistoric times to now.  I never realized how much the availability of color and the media (oil, egg tempera) impacts art.  It makes sense that art would be influenced by the available tools, but I had not made the connection.  Yellow ochre has been around since prehistoric times but cadmium red became available in the early 1900’s. 

I have a BS in Biology, so I knew how Rods and Cones allow us to see color and shades, but just learned there are three different types of Cones, each react to different wavelengths of color.  Also, we cannot perceive the edges of objects where object and background have the same luminance.  The third link has a nifty tool that shows how this works.

 

This stuff may not be as fascinating to others, but I’ve always been the type of person who likes to understand the “why” and “how” of the world around us.  Hope you enjoy the links.

http://www.webexhibits.org/pigments/intro/history.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/cones.html

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/anuszkiewicz.html

Don't be So Negative...

Art is one place where we always want to be thinking "negatively."  Negative space, that is. Getting a good composition means being sensitive to the negative space, the shapes it creates, how it frames the key subjects, and how it keeps the eye flowing back into the painting.