Workshop 8 - Steel & Glass

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Comment by Rick Harder on April 26, 2012 at 7:03

Li,  Hello to you.  Thank you for your comments and feedback.... much appreciated.

Comment by Ningning Li on April 26, 2012 at 5:24

Rick, I like it very much !  Beautiful work. I like your style  and I also like Dee's.  You two have something in common, such as, simplicity, good colour combination, impresive brush work and acurate values..... Just enjoyable. Li

Comment by Rick Harder on April 24, 2012 at 20:54

Thanks Dee. Yes.......... agreed.  I'm adding speed and use big brushes for as long as possible to the list.

I think the lack of detail in the photo is a lack of detail in the painting as I shot in daylight with high resolution, 14 mega pixels or so.  Will work on the photography.  Whoops, perhaps it's when I reduce the size of my photo for posting.  I'll try omitting the reduction step.  The software may be sacrificing resolution when I downsize the photo.  I'm in the habit of reducing size cuz of VAA. Thanks for the added imput.

Comment by Dee Berridge on April 24, 2012 at 20:15

Comment by Dee Berridge 1 second ago
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Hi Rick, good work and thanks so much for sharing your excellent checklist and learnings which clearly show in your painting. I'm working on loosening up and might add something about big brushes...and speed... Looking forward to seeing what you do next. The photo looks like you could get more fine detail which may just be the resolution. The lighting looks ok. I've been battling with that too!

Comment by Rick Harder on April 24, 2012 at 17:53

Thanks Chris for your clarification. I've made a list of things to do while I paint that I'm sure will improve my work with thicker paint, or any paint for that matter (I'm attempting to improve brushwork).

• Don't look directly at the area of my set-up that I'm currently painting - don't stare.
• Stand back often to look at the work from a distance.
• Square off rounded objects.
• Don't be afraid to bring up the saturation in principle areas or even overall.
• Vary the color in your shadows and negative spaces (usually the greys [low saturation colors]) with "polyisochromes" (same saturation and value, but different hues), more interesting; less flat. 
• Use color checker more for comparison rather than accuracy.
• It's okay to exaggerate without over doing it.
• It's okay to be more loose and not be a slave to exactness.

I made this list tonight after working on a study I began yesterday. It's gone pretty well. We'll see if it goes better tomorrow.

Thanks for being part of the catalyst on this.  

P.S. I photographed the painting in the late afternoon (in the shade; no direct sun) using a tripod. I'll do some experimentation with this as well.  

Comment by Rick Harder on April 24, 2012 at 10:02

Chris & Dirk,

Thanks for commenting...........  I'm becoming partial to the painting of greys. Not only can they be really beautiful in a painting, but really make the saturated colors pop (if that's what you want). The actual painting looks better to me than the photograph (difficult to get the camera to duplicate life).  I really appreciate your feedback.

Comment by Dirk Rampling on April 24, 2012 at 9:43

Beautiful use of greys

Comment by Dorian Aronson on April 23, 2012 at 15:54

Off to your blog I go..........dor:))