A Painting, Process Pics and Some Ponderings

This is painted with my finger, using the acrylic paint, in the “Procreate” app. I prevented myself from tidying up the edges, and smoothing out too many of the lines/brushstrokes. This tendency, to “overdo” and “overwork” a picture to within an inch of it’s life, means, I sometimes lose a lot of the liveliness that I begin with. *Touch on a pic below, to enlarge them all.

Drawing

I usually begin a drawing, with a lot of loose lines, shapes, and a rough outline of the overall composition… Something I was drilled in – and glad of – during my years of art studies. Something, I’ve tried to encourage others to do in drawing classes I’ve given.

Too tight and too careful – too soon, can restrict the fluidity of a line. Also getting caught up working in one area, of your picture space, can leave a lot of white space serving no purpose at all, and detract from the part you’ve so painstakingly worked upon. Continually, moving all around the drawing space, allows you to keep things in check.

If lines are intitially laid down lightly drawing, then, problem areas can be corrected and reigned in, during the drawing processes – with barely a need for an eraser – or that handy go back button in an art app. As you decide on just the right placement of a line, then you can darken it further. If you add tonal work, and leave some lines visible; this can add a bit of pizazz to the final composition.

Although a simple linear drawing, is commonly used for a preliminary drawing – as a sort of a scaffold for additional media; it can be also be a “finished” piece. In this case, varying the depth of colour, tone, thickness…of the line work can add interest.

Painting

In painting – I’ve always drawn more than painted – I’ve learnt it’s often more suitable, to block in with colour, working out the basic shapes, and forms, and then begin to reign it in, defining and refining, one edge/colour with another. I often prefer to have some definite line work visible in my paintings. Perhaps this is best described as a boldness of brushstroke here and there; whether on a iPad painting, or a work on canvas – I have some delicious tubes of acrylics, waiting to be squeezed. 🙂

Writing

When I write a poem – or a sentence, I sift and weigh up words for sound and meaning. This sometimes reminds me of aspects of drawing and painting – the considerations of: light and dark, curved and straight lines, colour and tone… I see fascinating compositional correlations, between my visual art, and my writing…and in other art forms: music, dance…I looked a little at that, in one of my earlier posts on drawing.

Thank you, for visiting; and ploughing through my highly punctuated ponderings.

P.s I wonder if my wild alliterating, in this article, actually aggravates, or even agitates, some acutely ab – I mean observant reader, apologies if this applies to you. 🙂