By W. R. Jones
Last Saturday I had planned on starting a painting of an old truck pulling a beat up Airstream trailer. The canvas was an 11″ x 14″. The painting was going to be from a photo I took. I was attracted to the image because it was such a junkie looking rig parked in front of a nice house. I speculated the “poor” relatives were visiting.
But I couldn’t find my reference so I decided to do a plein air piece since the day was nice. I saw this chair sitting on the side of a house and asked the owner if I could paint it. I had a 6″ x 8″ panel with me. It looked sooo small like I could finish it in a few brief brush strokes.
Got all set up, mixed basic colors and pulled out my brush; brimming with confidence I made the first strokes. The wheels came off straight away. I could not draw that chair to save my life. 6″ x 8″ and 2 hours later I’m still trying to draw the chair. So then I decided to paint it solid and paint the negative light areas. What a suck idea that was. That only works if you get the shape and value down correctly with a single stroke. That skill is totally beyond me. Wiped it down and started again. I had to go back and forth background to foreground. So now it is 9pm and I’m painting by candlelight. I did find that my painting looked better in the dark.
Look for my future plein air work to be of a single rock.
Here is a man with VALUES you can’t help but admire if for nothing else than the audacity to admit them. A Victorville, CA judge dismissed a mother’s request to restrain the father of their 9 month old son from visitation. The judge denied it; accusing the woman of lying. The father killed the baby and himself. Judge’s response: “It occurred at the worst possible time for my candidacy.”
Yep, we need to elect more judges like this – his dick up that cost the life of a baby is only important as it may weigh against his re-election. This would give him further chance to make bad judgments and let us increase his salary because he now has more experience.
