Sunday 1 May 2011

Course work: A good bit of additional work on the Project Three painting; the entire

sheet has paint on it now,  and I’m almost ready to start work on the closest trees.

Reading and theoretical studies:

Timothy Hyman Bonnard

Thames and Hudson, London, 1998

Pp. 151-179

Sketchbook work: Revisiting yesterday’s topic, I attempted a sketch wearing the helmet in very subdued, strongly-directional light, using ink, compressed charcoal,  colored pencil, and a dab of white acrylic. The helmet made it difficult to work, and the poor light made it difficult to see, but there are a few things about the sketch that are pleasing.  Using the compressed charcoal to blend the edges of the ink and to tone the colored pencil worked reasonably well, and the four media employed seem compatible for a subject of this sort.

Weekly reflections on learning experience:  The days that I did not paint this week were spent in part thinking about and working on solutions for the small difficulties that inevitably occur during the course of a painting.  I am still trying to arrive at a satisfactory combination of greens that will allow me to depict the fairly-well-lit grass on the top of the dam, the shaded grass on the face of the dam, and the partially-lit grass and weeds between the window and the pond.  Choosing to paint the scene in early-morning light, looking out from an illuminated room,  has caused me some problems, and there have been delays owing to bad weather and electric service outage. The change in proportions needed to go from the original drawing to a sheet of different dimensions, and a slight shift in viewpoint to eliminate the fence (which I found undesirable from a design viewpoint)  have also caused me some problems.  Reading and theoretical studies are pretty well on schedule; sketchbook work is only fair.  Overall, a pretty good week’s effort.