When
a person decides that he or she has a desire to “become an artist” this can
take many directions from the weekend painter to the serious artist to the
professional. As a beginning student,
the artist wants to paint everything in sight – a still life, a tree in the
yard, the little girl in the cute tutu, the dog. Once
students have progressed to a more sophisticated level, they begin to realize that better artists
seem to work in a series, but often they don’t understand why.
Here are
some reasons why artists work in series:
·
Understanding the subject you are painting
·
Stretching outside your comfort level
·
Getting beyond the ordinary “it’s been done before”
zone
·
Gaining confidence in your ability
·
Exploring the
subject in progressively deeper more meaningful ways
·
Clearly defining the limitations in which you work
If you’ve never tried working in a
series, here are some suggestions of how to get started. Remember, the subject can be as simple as a
piece of fruit or one object that has great meaning to you.
·
Pick your subject or theme
·
Do some research about your subject/theme (how many
different colors of pears are there)
·
Assemble reference materials (photos from all angles
and several different ranges, value sketches, compositional sketches)
·
Narrow down your best reference images
·
Set your parameters (emphasizing a particular element
of art, using a particular palette, painting on a particular size format, etc.)
·
Commit a certain amount of time to the series daily
·
Paint on several of the paintings each session,
bringing up the series at the same speed
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