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Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Italian Painting/ Italian plums



Actually, it's not quite this red.... and the red is not uniform. Again, the camera.

I am out of reading material (AAAUGH!) so I am all over the internet reading people's essays and looking at painting, good, bad, student, pro -- tutto. I should have done this earlier....
Fascinating! some say, I hate line! I do everything to avoid it...Painting is not drawing. And then, I love line, it is another element to use in painting, part of the rich vocabulary. And so on, very entertaining. But what Sargent says has been tremendously helpful to me in the last few days: Painting is the arrangement of tones, he says.  That is a big statement and a clear one - In observational painting, color cannot be the king. It has to be value.

Tomorrow the first of a long line of visitors arrives and I must dismantle the studio and go outside to the landscape.....(so scary!) but I want to learn it, therefore, into the breach!


2 comments:

  1. Molto bello!
    (Writing this for Enrica B.)

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  2. Beautiful! All your fruit is just luscious!!
    I've always heard that value is so very important in painting. I had exercise in learning this when painting with pastels. We had red film over our eyes and chose paints just based on value. When complete it was amazing. Colors were not the local color, but the values were correct and the painting still held up.
    Enjoy the landscape, Jean! I can't wait to see what you do with it!

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