Class 4— October 21— Complexity Behind it All

San Carlos, pastel, 12" x 12"

At this class I’m going to try to help you see and understand better how to approach a complex background that resides behind your subject matter by patterning light and dark, as well as identifying and repeating shapes, colors and textures. Your photo should have something like a tangled forest or textured hillside overlapped by the subject matter in front of it.

Look for a photograph something like this:

I often take my photos into Photoshop to manipulate them. For instance, you might do something such as this, blurring the area behind so that you see it as shapes.

Or it can be helpful to do a drawing from a complex photo that reduces the tangles to areas of value and patterns, so if you have time this week you might try a pencil drawing such as the one below to help you see the areas of complexity as values and shapes only. Bring the drawing(s) along with your photo(s).

Any kind or size paper is fine with me, but I always think it's a good idea to consider the amount of information in the painting and how you plan to paint it, and then choose the size of the paper to suit it. It can be hard to cram a lot of background shapes onto an 8x10" paper, so choose accordingly. 

Bring your night paintings done last week to show, as usual. I want to talk about the night paintings, and see the results on the black boards you made.

See you on Thursday,
Deborah