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Monday, January 31, 2011

The Evolution of a Painting....without reference photos!





I am working on exercises that will help me break free from relying too heavily on my reference photos. I am trying to paint more from my plein air studies for starters. But I am also trying other exercises which I shared yesterday with my students at my monthly mini workshop. For the paintings that I am posting today I allowed myself to use the reference photo for the first (top) painting. I then did three more versions, all of them are 5x7. I put the photo away and for each version I let the previous painting guide me. They each evolved with changes in design and colors. It was very liberating to be free of the photo. We sometimes get too caught up in copying the photo and it can cause so many problems as well as frustration. This was a fun exercise and I may just do a few more versions! By the way, I want to thank everyone that came to the studio yesterday for the workshop. I had so much fun and hope you all did as well!

These paintings are available for $75 each. Please contact me at kemstudios@yahoo.com if interested.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Karen: I love your palette selection in each painting as well as the compositional changes. Did you start with the same surface each time?

Jo Castillo said...

Working without a photo is a great exercise. I bet your classes are fun and the students learn a lot. Nice job.

Karen said...

Hi Marianne,
The top one is on Wallis Belgian Mist but the other three are on Uart. I toned them with nupastels that I rubbed in with pipe foam insulation.
karen

Karen said...

Thanks Jo! I hope they have fun :) I know that I sure do!