Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Another commission

On a Bright Day-9x12- Sold

this is a commission piece based on a previous painting.

the place where i paint this couldnt be any more idyllic. its a beautiful place. still water to get very cool reflections, neat little boats always tied up, and that sweet boathouse.

remember that when you paint reflections in water to make the dark shapes its reflecting a little lighter and the light shapes its reflecting should be a tad darker. same with boat reflections.
i like the contrast in this one of the warms against the darks. very few really dark spots too. makes it feel very light and airy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mike- a bucolic little beauty. It's also great to be able to click on it and see the enlarged version. It's so helpful to see how you treat the shadows.

I really liked the explanation of how to handle the reflections in the water. I need to note that.

I'm running into a wall by trying to " match " colors instead of seeing the values and warms and cools.
Having been a textile artist for years and matching colors with precision, it's been hard to let that mentality go.

Any suggestions?

I really love your work and the beauty with which you depict the simplest of scenes....

mike rooney studios said...

bonnieluria- thanks!
we all have a problem seeing the way we need to. were trained from birth to match arent we. my idea for you to counter this natural tendency would be to do little excercises to train yourself differently.
heres one:
take a magazine and cut out any random photo and tape it to your easel. mix paint to paint on the shapes that is different than what is really there. you can do the first one monochromatically (in white and black) to get the feel for studying value relationships. remember that a white shape or no.1 value reads right as long as the shapes/values around it make it a white/or light shape.
in other words you can make that shape a 2 value as long as you drop everything else down 1 notch as well. are you confused yet??
if not let me go on. everythings relative. a shape only looks light in "comparison" to shapes that are much darker next to it.
so do one matching exactly
then do the next one dropping the shape thats a 1 value down to a 2 and drop everything else by the same amount. this trains your eye to compare shapes to other shapes instead of trying to "match" the value and just paint it on. seeing it in relation to whats around it is better than just copying it. then do the third one in color. then on the fourth try to change the colors that are really there keeping the same value but either warming up the shape or cooling it down. but KEEP the same value. these excercises will help you "see" instead of match.
hope this helps. BTW i was a sign painter before this and i know what you mean about matching stuff.

Anonymous said...

Mike- wow- what a great tutorial and so generous of you to go through the time it took to write.
You could have produced another painting :-).

I thank you so much and am printing this out and will try it.
Part of my stumbling around, I think, is wanting to play a concerto without practicing the scales.

Can't be done.

What a liberation for you to be a former sign painter! Oh, I can relate.....

Again, thank you.

mike rooney studios said...

bonnieluria- youre welcome. i cut and pasted it to the post for today since you said you found it helpful and wanted to try it.
i play guitar a little and my guitar teacher said i did the same thing. wanted to play songs right away without knowing the notes and how to get them. thats why i still suck at guitar. i didnt have the time or inclination to make that a priority where i did want to do it with painting. i coulda been a rock star playing music around the world to adoring young females who wanted to do nothing but... i just didnt want to..... hehehe
let me know what you find out once you do them ok?