Paint something everyday!

Paint something everyday! This is my new mantra - I realized that its like tending to your garden you have to tend to your art consistently or it wont bloom! Obvious I know, but being human, artists can get distracted and there have been times when I did not go down to my studio for days at a time. And then when I finally do, I have to get back into the whole creative process from the beginning all over again. If you're worried about the blank canvas syndrome and dont know what to paint next, just go down and doodle to get warmed up. Take an old painting thats lying around and start touching it up or a small canvas and do some quick sketches, work on anything that you're not attached to. Infact, any painting you do, try not to be too attached to it..the best work results from a healthy alertness and a good dose of detachment. In the worst case if it doesnt work out, you can toss it into that pile of other paintings that didnt make it! But each time you paint you're flexing the muscles you want to develop and getting familiar with your medium and achieving mastery slowly but surely. So good luck and paint everyday!

Creating Color Charts

I have been meaning to do the Richard Schmid Color charts as described in his book 'Alla Prima - Everything I know about Painting' for the longest time. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to 'just do it'! I ordered a dozen 8x16 canvas panels, some tape and decided to use my current palette with a few substitutions and additions (Terra Rosa instead of Burnt Sienna and Transparent oxide red) so it was similar to Mr. Schmid's with the following 11 colors.

Cadmium Yellow Lemon
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Yellow Deep
Yellow Ochre
Cadmium Red Medium
Terra Rosa
Alizarin
Transparent Oxide Red
Viridian
Cobalt Blue
Ultramarine Blue

Heres what the first taped canvas panel of Unmixed colors (in 5 values) looked like (took off the tape while the paint was wet and reused the grid for the next one).

It was actually a very interesting experience doing this chart since mixing colors while painting is very intuitive for me, I'm almost not thinking about the colors i'm mixing! This exercise forced me to 'see' the colors as they actually are and what mixing white to each of them does as they go down in value, even though we do this all the time, it seemed like a new experience!

Chart 1. Unmixed colors

I did two charts yesterday and two more today, with 7 more to go. But I am convinced that this is a great exercise and will definitely benefit me and change the way I mix colors next time I paint.

Chart 2. Cad yellow lemon dominant

Charts 3 & 4. Cad Yellow med & deep dominant