| Dear Subscribers, Greetings! Happy Easter! Firstly, as mentioned a while back, I got 2 paintings accepted into Salon International 2010 at top-flight Greenhouse Gallery. Well, their online exhibit is already up, so I officially have my work on the Greenhouse website....what a trip! If you're not familiar with this gallery, well....it's da bomb.    I usually don't post my mess-ups, but hey, why not....this one was a good lesson for me. So I started a new still life. Here was the setup:  The first stage:  The next stage: My concept was to make the yellow onion the center of interest, with the most light and surrounded by the most intense color...the bright purple onion and the blue cloth (with the cloth become gradually less saturated)  The next stage: It is kind of working, but I'm realizing that it's not enough...the scene is dull  The next stage: I tried 3 or 4 different background schemes (light high, light low, tight pattern, loose, etc...) before deciding that the composition really wasn't working for me--the painting was fundamentally weak, and no amount of color and value adjustments was going to fix it.  So, (scrape scrape scrape) off comes the paint. Lesson learned--don't get careless with my compositions. Also, there is something incredibly liberating and cathartic about wiping out a painting....sometimes you gotta just move on. I started working on a portrait commission! Probably show you next time. Until next week, David A. N. Cheifetz www.davidcheifetz.com *If you have comments, questions, or feedback, feel free to shoot me an email and we'll have a conversation. *If you think a friend would enjoy my artwork, feel free to forward this newsletter. They can subscribe by clicking on the Email Newsletter button on my site. |