Repaint It class results

I heard more people comment on how much fun we had today! There's something about diving in and just splashing around in a different medium that loosens you up and brings out the kid in you, I think.

The idea was to repaint something that didn't quite satisfy you. I saw a lot of different subjects, all of which were promising paintings in their own right. We did a lengthy critique of each one, examining the strengths and weaknesses in them, and making suggestions on various ways to approach changing things. I showed some sketches I did last night, just to prime the pump. (I had planned to repaint one of these, but my plans changed, so I'm not showing the original pastel paintings.) Anyway, here are the drawings I did:

Each one of these is maybe 1.5" x 2" in size. The idea is to take the original painting and nudge it. Change the underlying shapes, or the color or composition, or choose one part you're most intrigued with and crop in close to it. I used a plain old #2 pencil and some Aquarell Crayons that were a gift. Interesting and fun to do. It's such a good way to get the juices flowing without spending too much time or materials...

I decided to paint from this old pastel painting that I found interesting but not particularly successful:

There are some very compelling parts to it, but all in all the underlying shapes don't work at all well, and the colors are pretty weird. It's on Canson paper, so there isn't much hope of reworking it.

In class today I used a piece of white Pastelmat paper and Createx Pure Pigments with soft charcoal, to make this WIP:

Here's a side-by side comparison that shows the light, color and energy of the new one even better:

 I still plan to go into the painting with gouache, I think, to add some opacity to it and continue the details. It's much improved already, IMHO.


I want to share a painting Bill did in watercolor that I think shows how exciting and fun it can be to play with a new medium:

Bill--watercolors

He remarked on how it wouldn't let him do the details he's so used to using, which is a distinct advantage for him at this stage of his development. He was painting on Wallis sandpaper, so he plans to use some pastel over the watercolor--I hope with a light hand.

Keep painting, gang!