Sherry Meidell's Blog, page 7

Gratefulness

Here are some things that I’m grateful for this year: 

I’m grateful for two year olds that say, “I love Uncle Luke. 40 minutes til Luke’s house.” I’m grateful for mother-in-laws that need to putter, puttering with a card for a great granddaughter, puttering while dishing up a portion of her chili to send home with us, puttering to go out and get some eggs from the backyard chickens for the neighbors. Always puttering.

I’m grateful for a tornado’s worth of kids running through the house. They run down stairs through the kitchen and down into the basement. The giant visiting dog perks up and runs after them. They run up the stairs through the kitchen and up into the family room. Repeat on a 10 minute rotation. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat..I’m grateful for a room full of people eating turkey and masher potatoes and gravy.

Im grateful for car repair shops and eye doctors and quinachronome rose watercolor paint. I’m grateful for friends and a husband and kindness and love.  I’m grateful for prayers of gratitude, prayers asking for help, prayers asking for blessing on others. And for Apple Pie.

Live Model vs Photographs

Part of every artists training and continued training should be painting and sketching from the live model. The experience involves seeing things with your eyes that the camera does not see. The model asked me why do you paint from a model when you could paint from a photo that doesn’t move? I told her that the human eye sees things differently than the camera. There is reflected light, an ease in seeing lost edges and more depth and ability to see in the shadows.

Plus there is the personality of the sitter that can play into the painting which isn’t there in the photo. It was fun to get to know the person on the other end of the painting. There is that bit of apprehension about “Oh no, what if she comes and looks at the painting and is disappointed, shocked and dismayed with the artist’s ability. But there is also the just dive into the paintingi and get started and do the best that you can.

I do take pictures of the model for future reference and to finish up the painting if time runs out. It was interesting to look at the photos after I had studied the model and painted for two hours. IT was true, the eye sees differently than the camera. Live models are all around us. Start sketching and painting.

Out of the Head Onto the Page

Sketching from life trains your mind and adds to your sketching from imagination. The sketching arm goes into muscle memory. Sometimes it’s like magic and the image appears from the end of your pen or pencil. You can take those images from your sketchbook and use them for a project. Some ladies in my congregation wanted an image for a Primary Program. I could go to my sketchbook and see if something there would work. Below is the finished art for the program.

This painting came home from the Women Out West Exhibit at the Sears Gallery in St George and the February Fisherman won Second place at the Davis County Art Exhibit which can be seen at the Davis County Office Building in Farmington. Go have a look at the paintings there.

The First Brushstroke

It is important to know where you are going, before you put down that first brushstroke. You can do that by value studies and color studies. You can also do that by looking at your painting and rehearsing where that stroke is going to go and what colors are going to be added to that stroke. Some artists will dance their brush above their painting, practicing that stroke before it ever touches the painting.

It is also important to know where the whites are going to be in your painting and doing something to help you preserve those whites. I like to draw a circle on my paper where I want to save those whites. This way they don’t get covered up in the exuberance of putting down those fresh washes. The dance of white in your watercolors add life to your paintings.

Both of these paintings were started as demos in my watercolor class. Talking and painting at the same time is a skill that takes time to learn. You don’t know what will come out of your mouth nor what will go down on the paper. It’s always an adventure.

October Day 31

Thanks for joining me this month for Eating Crayons.. I hope you enjoyed reading them, as much as I enjoyed creating them. So the month has come to an end. When I started drawing these comics, I wasn’t sure if enough ideas would come to fill the month, but they came. A lot of the ideas come after you dive into the work. So dive in. Create something good. Or draw a picture of a teddy bear and give it to someone you love.

October Day 30

October Day 29

October Day 28

October Day 27

October Day 26

October Day 26