Monday, February 03, 2014

Practical art instruction...

Icon image of Christ
2014
Pastel on paper.

Image reworked.

A practice image.

As I always tell my students*, practice with pencils and pastels before you begin to paint - or 'write' an icon if you are very, very spiritual.  That way you can see right off what is wrong with your eyesight which may prevent you from accurately documenting what you see.  You can recognize your mistakes in that little scriptorium of your imagination before wasting your time on a well prepared panel.  In the case of the image shown here I see what is wrong.


*I teach cats.


2 comments:

  1. This takes a tremendous amount of discipline, which I am sorely lacking. My method is usually to plow ahead, make mistakes and try to fix them as I go. But, in my heart, I know you speak the the truth. Though I am a mouse and not a cat, I will try to heed this wise instruction. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful icon!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Pat. I'm not qualified to give instructions - I was just teasing. I did this to experiment with some gold ink and a gold paste I found for the background. The hi-lights need to be toned a bit.

      Normally I do a drawing of everything first, then paint. When you paint you always can fix mistakes. I like playing with pastels and crayon on paper lately.

      God bless and may he give success to the work of your hands.

      Delete


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