Jun 23rd, 2009

This is a blog post that is actually happened within in this week. It is not the blog post about a painting I did about two months ago. So, here it is.

On Jun 23rd, 2009, I talked with Zin Lim about my final thesis, and I had a huge sudden understanding of what I lack of right now. It wasn’t that I never listen to them, but it was just too hard for me to actually get those message into my heart. I hope you can understand what I am talking about here. Anyway, before, I was like “No, I don’t want to do  full values.” and “No, I don’t  want to do more color”. Today, I fully understand what he means by I need more color for my painting

John Wentz says I am too worried  about value. Zin Lim says I need to try get more color on my painting. These two things are actually the same thing! Zhaoming says I use my strength to cover my weakness, which is drawing cover my color. So, I hope this time. I can really figure out the “color part” of my painting, and improve it.

“The Couple”
in progress (1) & (2)
Critique from Zin:
1. I can use color to do plane changes rather than just value.
2. The arms on the right and the heads can be group together in color and value to emphasize that two figures are connect and also create more harmony between the two.
3. Left side can be different color and texture from the right.
4. The upper hand could be lighter, because it is at the top and receiving lot more light than the bottom hand.
5.  Focal point needs more strong detail.

About the new painting I am going to start, he said:
1. My reference photo has no strong contrast. So, if I want to do more contemporary style painting, I could think about overall color relationship of the painting.
2. Another idea is to darker upper background to have more contrast against the light side of figure, and make upper part of the figure as a focal point.   And, make bottom part less contrast.
3. Make color changes more obvious.

So, base on that I did some value sketches and color sketches.

And this is the first stage of the panting.

“Framed”
in progress(1)
1. It doesn’t have enough color plane changes.
2. It’s missing something, like not enough variation and texture. Everything is too similar and too soft.
3. If I want to have narrow value, I need to think about bring more color into the painting. It’s not wise to eliminate both value and color.

Not about any specific painting, but painting in general:
1. Big paintings are good for playing with texture; Small paintings need more detail and contrast to draw viewers attention.