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Daily Painting Discipline

by cooper on 1/12/2009 7:31:42 PMComment on this

Greetings,

Welcome to my daily painting place, where today, discipline was on the menu yet again.

By the way there's a raging blizzard outside at the moment, just thought that might interest you :) Nothing new for Spencer, Iowa, trust me. It was an excellent day for painting.

I have been thinking about discipline in painting, or the lack thereof. There are a lot of heads that hat could cover, right? But. The discipline I am seeking, is to gain a litle more control over what happens on the canvas. I have an ongoing struggle with just how messy can you be with the brush strokes and still be considered this side (the good side) of outlandish? On the days when I feel like I'm teetering on the brink, I go grab my favorite Berthe Morisot book and console myself with the idea that my brushstrokes are not too much messier than hers. (sure!)

But let's get back to discipline. On the last post, I wrote about my discipline-sized canvas, a nice little 12 x 12 inch. My favorite canvas size is more in the 30 x 30, or 40 x 40 inch range. When brand new, clean and white, they all have a ton of potential, but I think size impacts the outcome in more than just square inches.

12 x 12 inch canvas:
    allows you to focus close on a simple subject
    big brush strokes run off the page, so you're required to shorten up and CONTROL
    not nearly as much square footage to cover, the painting goes faster, and you achieve more paintings if that needs be

30 x 30 or 40 x 40 inch canvas:
    you can stand back, (glasses off !) and paint big because you've got the room
    when you've got more of a story to tell, you've got the room to do it
    it takes longer to cover that much space, not as many paintings are completed in a month/year/whatever
    when you hang the finished painting on the wall, you can see it, and understand it, even from the far side of the room

So now how about a couple of images:

This is a 12 x 12 inch canvas I started today, and the second image is a 40 x 40 inch canvas painted last summer.

They do register well with my self-made lists, don't they? I promise to finish the smaller canvas tomorrow, post a finished image, and then we'll vote on the discipline/control part!

Later, Cooper

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