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Monday, January 14, 2019

Daily Painting Tips for Busy Artists

'Beautiful Interlude'              5x7               pastel                ©Karen Margulis
available $95

It's that time of year. Many of us are making the commitment to paint more often in 2019. I have been a Daily Painter since 2006 and I can say it is the best habit I ever developed. I try to paint every day but sometimes life does intervene and painting takes a back seat. But for the most part I have streamlined my painting practice routine so that I can manage some time in the studio most days that I am in town.

Over on my Patreon Page we are exploring the habit of more frequent painting. Today I am sharing the video demo of the painting above 'Beautiful Interlude'.  If you haven't joined my page, I have some Daily Painting tips I'd like to share here:

  • Keep paintings small 6x8 and 5x7 are ideal sizes 
  • Keep them quick. Set a timer for 15-20 minutes
  • Keep supplies set up even if it is just a small set that is easy to access. Precut your paper and select a variety of reference photos.
  • Simplify! start with a few big simple shapes.
  • Create a roadmap of values....decide what is mostly dark, light and mid value.
  • Choose the area of interest and put the most clarity in this area
  • Leave some mystery....don't put in every detail. The time limit helps.
  • When the timer goes off STOP. Paint another one if you still have time but don't fiddle with the first painting. It is a warm up study!
  • Evaluate the painting and decide on 3 marks to finish. place those mark and call it done!




My reference photo


I used only Terry Ludwig pastels for today's painting 

There are still openings in my IAPS Demo! I hope you will consider adding it to your schedule. Even if wildflowers aren't your thing I will be sharing tips and techniques that you will be able to apply to any landscape! www.iapspastel.org




1 comment:

Vanessa Turner said...

Great points Karen! For many artists, painting time only comes when other responsibilities like part time jobs, motherhood etc are taken care of. So it can be difficult to find time to paint. I can definitely attest to working smaller. The biggest item which made a difference, was keeping supplies setup. Before that, I found I would spend almost an hour or so setting up and rearranging only to realize that I didn't accomplish any painting in the little bit of time that I had. So leaving it up is a huge help, because once I step into my painting space it is truly "to paint"... love your reminders!