Where I'm At

The most challenging part of this course so far for me has been creating the illusion of depth while creating clearly defined shapes and realistic colors. I have worked on taking my outlines where there is a sense of depth and refining the shapes while maintaining the depth in the painting. My white on white painting for example had depth but when I tried to bring the shapes out more and make them clearing, the painting lost some of its depth. I have progressed though and i now feel the painting has depth and defined shapes. I have also become more comfortable with the effects of different pressures and brushstrokes. In my first oil painting of the course, I painted an orange set on a background of pink tissue paper. I experimented with different types of brushes, eventually settling on a cheap brush with mangled bristles. I have more experience now and have a better sense of how different materials will react and behave. Looking at painting by past artists allows us to observe and learn form what they did. We can also see how different techniques behaved. I learned form the paintings by Van Gogh how different vivid colors reacted together and how bland can go well with bright. It was very helpful and inspiring to gaze upon these great works by some of the celebrated, and not celebrated, masters of the past.