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Art Day—ARRGGHH Edition

ARRGGHH—Painting is so hard!!

Last week, I was visiting a woman who lives on the edge of town—she had built a modern open-concept house next door to the traditional farmhouse where she had grown up 60 years earlier, and I stood in the driveway between the two houses admiring the farmland and blue skies around me, and I decided to take some pictures of things the woman had displayed around her yard. She collects angels, and among them, I discovered some pots with artificial flowers.

I made a sketch based on the photograph:

And then I tried to paint it, and the result frustrates me to no end. There are some things I like about the texture of the pots, but I think I see my weakness—a general inability to draw. So, I think before I get anywhere with this painting thing, I'm going to have to figure out that major step. A class, maybe?

Comments

dive said…
Practice makes perfect, Robyn and you are way too hard on yourself. These are great, though I am SO glad you missed off the fake stone angels.
2:16 PM
kyle@sift said…
Painting is not hard. Trying to paint things to look like photographs is hard...technique is learned...style is handed to us...perhaps even given to us.
8:38 PM
dive said…
Good point, Kyle. I never painted from photos, Robyn. One of the first basic exercises we were given at art college was to paint the space around things (like Neetzy's painting site: Negative Space).
Try painting and drawing from life; your two eyes give a different perspective to the camera's single lens and allow you to see around the object you are painting and allow you to paint what the object actually is rather than - as with a photo - merely what the object looks like.
If you need any inspiration, head back into my archives under the "art" link and study my drawings of … er … nekkid men. Hee hee.
2:43 AM
Madame DeFarge said…
I'm just impressed that you do it at all. Why don't you go to some classes? you might discover that you're way better than everyone else.
2:32 PM
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