July17Art

Artists must be symbol collectors... the good news is once you learn a symbol for a tree, rock, cow, horse, you can use that same symbol in LOTS of paintings.. going thru the stack of Tony's paintings, you can see he paints the same tree shape, over and over.. and the same 'dude' fishing in a stream... so now I know the secret, just gotta learn how to do it... practice, practice, practice.

He said we should study painters we admire, and study how they paint a tree, or rock etc... and copy not the painting, but the symbol for a rock or tree... and use that in our own painting.  He likes doing BIG sketches outdoors, then smaller value sketch that he uses to do a painting from indoors.  He says... if possible paint standing up, or as far away as possible from your painting, so that you can see the whole painting as a unit.

He did not like this at all, fussed at me for copying the photo too closely, and again not enough darks, the bottom part he said looked like a worm... I guess I have my worm symbol nailed down now...

Trying to remember the critique on this one... not enough dark... looks too much like a worm or fingers dark area should be at least 25% of the painting. Beach paintings should follow the same value patterns as 'snow' paintings. Symbols, I need a better 'sea oats' symbol, and more variation in size on my Palmetto trees.. Mama, Papa, baby... to show depth.