Done to Death!

Time to reflect.

I am getting really blunt at telling people what I think about their work, whether it be on blogger, flickr or whatever in the comments section, but what would people rather hear? I would always rather people tell me my work is rubbish if they think so, providing they tell me why, than just say it's lovely sooner than run the risk of hurting my feelings. That doesn't help anyone. Some of the work I put up on the Internet I think is really quite poor, then when people come along and rave about it, it puzzles me so. Maybe I it's because I know what things are wrong with my own work and can't be bothered to fix it due to lost interest or inability, or simply the desire to just start something new.

Every day I spend a considerable amount of time looking at people's artwork on the Internet (what would we do without this marvelous invention?) studying their style and trying to gain more knowledge and different techniques. Trouble is, when you get to my age, it gets more difficult to learn new stuff, to retain it and even to stop losing it LOL! Do you know, I wrote a book a few years ago - it got published and amazingly I sold every copy, even though it is still listed on Amazon, but I have now forgotten much about what I wrote - really scary isn't it?

But to get back to artwork, well remember the art course I took earlier in the year? The class was full and I got to see how different people worked, what they were capable of and the work they produced. It soon became clear to me, who had real flare and who were, well really no-hopers. I know that's awful to say, but if you can't even draw easily, then you have no hope at painting or being an artist. To a certain extent, I believe that artists are born and not 'created' for want of a better word. Some of the 'students' (I still am of the old school where we would call them 'pupils' but we have to move with the times) were capable of some excellent work, but ruined much of what they did by either overworking a painting or fiddling with it till it was done to death! I can still hear our tutor shouting across the room "Fred(made up), put that brush down right now or you will overwork that painting!" I hadn't the heart to say what I thought, and that was that it was ruined two sessions ago!

I know it's tempting to just add that 'little bit more' to a painting, but with watercolour especially (and I do this times as well), overworking is adding too many layers and colours till it gets too dark and muddy, and fiddling is adding that little bit more detail to, or trying to correct or enhance the work. Sometimes a little bit of each of these so called 'faults' actually does improve the finished work, but of course the difficulty is knowing where and when to stop.

Here are my key aims, goals whatever in creating my paintings.

1. When sketching, keep the pencil moving back and forth until it finds the right line in my mind working away from a prominent point, subconsciously measuring distance.

2. Aim to add washes as loosely and transparently as possible adding in other colours while wet for shading and variety and texture.

3. Add the minimum of layers possible to show form.

4. Try to find the balance between detail and impression.

5. Not to try to make my work look too much like a photograph - always to remember it's a painting.

6. There must be more, but you add what you like here.

So, on reflection, I think on the whole that my work is improving, well know it's improving and evolving, much like most of you who read my blog with your own work I suspect. Don't get upset if I've criticised your work - just tell me to b****r off - I'm far from being an expert.

Lastly, thank you all for following me and for all your comments. It's such a buzz to read them and that someone with similar interests actually takes the time to comment on my work.