seeking freshness

Seeking Freshness

After not painting steadily for some time, working on the new book, I found myself struggling mightily as i returned to my painting about three weeks ago. Talk about frustration: I overworked, overpainted, and ruined all of my efforts.  Why? Too determined and thinking too much.  So what to do?

And happily, I kept painting and made a breakthrough that has helped me return freshness in color and composition to my paintings.  How? I stopped drawing and painted directly onto the paper with no underlying sketch.  Wow!! What a difference as i began focusing on color and value patterns and not on shapes.

I reserved the drawing and sketching for the value and composition studies, doing numerous studies to familiarize myself and my mind with an approach. Then i proceeded to paint without any pencil guides and I in my opinion was able to break out of my mental trap.  Give it a try by just committing to do a number of quick painting sketches without pencil shapes (after a series of composition and value sketches in your sketchbook).