Monday, October 25, 2010

Young Jean Cauvin-Stage 3

Was able to get a little bit accomplished on this tonight. This will be a monochromatic painting in the style of my self-portrait from last year. The background is much for difficult for me than the face, that's why I've left it to do later... I'll need to paint that upside-down. More to come.

3 comments:

Rick Davis said...

My wife said that her high school art teacher, Janet Wimmer (http://janetwimmer.blogspot.com/) made her students paint upside down as well. What exactly is the benefit there. It seems like it would make things more difficult.

Chris said...

Rick, viewing and painting upside down helps you see and paint what is actually there intead of your mind trying to interpret what is there. In other words, it forces me to think in terms of shapes; triangles, circles, squares, vs. John Calvin standing in a cathedral which is what my mind wants to "see" when it's right side up.

Chris said...

This is also the reason I paint in black and white first and then move toward color. Values, or the relation between lights and darks are what make things look "real." That's why you can look at a black and white photograph and it looks "real." Someone once said, values do all the work and color gets all the glory!