{"id":641,"date":"2017-05-31T17:50:33","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T17:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/?p=641"},"modified":"2017-05-31T18:05:20","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T18:05:20","slug":"too-good-to-be-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/31\/too-good-to-be-true\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Good to Be True"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Starry
Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Any\u00a0painter I’ve ever met, regardless of experience, possessed the desire to expand their abilities with each new canvas.\u00a0I never met anyone who\u00a0felt they possessed all\u00a0available knowledge or had developed all necessary skills. We’re all seeking growth, but there are hazards to avoid along the way. When you encounter an artist that seems to always get it right, always chooses the best point of view, lays out the best composition, chooses the perfect palette, puts down paint with seemingly effortless skill and confidence and consistently delivers\u00a0one beautiful image\u00a0after another,\u00a0it’s a good bet there are yards and yards of canvas in their history.<\/p>\n

Beware of those who would offer you shortcuts to becoming a master painter. Along\u00a0the path to accomplishment\u00a0you’ll be offered\u00a0both\u00a0knowledge and illusions. It’s important to absorb the first and avoid the last. When someone tells me these colors must be used in creating the perfect flesh tones or that counting the number of hard and soft edges in my paintings will lead me to Nirvana<\/em>, I\u00a0run as fast as I can\u00a0in the opposite direction. Flesh tones change based on environment: available light, reflection, what the model is wearing, etc. How edges are rendered\u00a0should be suggested\u00a0by the subject matter, not arbitrarily contrived in\u00a0one direction or another\u00a0by me.\u00a0The greatest KNOWLEDGE<\/em>\u00a0I ever received was that everything I needed to know was right there in front of me, I only needed to learn to SEE<\/em>\u00a0it.<\/p>\n

\"Value
Value Guide<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That’s where the years of experience come in, learning to see<\/em>, takes time. Baby steps at first, giant strides later. The good news is, all of us\u00a0can achieve it, the only requirement is a passion for getting there.<\/p>\n

\"Color
The Color Wheel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Consider\u00a0Vincent Van Gogh. A man in his 20s decides, one day, that painting is his future. Lacking any\u00a0affinity for his newly chosen profession, he embarks first on teaching himself to draw. The\u00a0first products are crude and childlike, but within 2 years of drawing anything and everything he encounters he becomes a master draftsman. He then picks up paints and travels down a similar road, producing crude amateur works first (his Potato Eater<\/em> period), masterpieces later. Friends know I can never get over the realization that while Mr. Van Gogh\u00a0made one of the greatest contributions to\u00a0art, both in number and quality of works, his time as an artist, from deciding it was what he wanted to do, until he breathed his last breath, numbered\u00a0only 9-10 years.<\/p>\n

\"Right<\/a>
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There ARE\u00a0some good solid vehicles\u00a0available to inform\u00a0us of\u00a0what we’re\u00a0looking for with our\u00a0artist’s eye<\/em>: right brain drawing exercises<\/a>, the color wheel, value guides and the rule of thirds<\/a>, for example, but be forever suspicious of the quick-fixes presented. There are no shortcuts to good painting, we\u00a0have to put in the mileage!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any\u00a0painter I’ve ever met, regardless of experience, possessed the desire to expand their abilities with each new canvas.\u00a0I never met anyone who\u00a0felt they possessed all\u00a0available knowledge or had developed all necessary skills. We’re all seeking growth, but there are hazards to avoid along the way. When you encounter an artist that seems to always get … Continue reading “Too Good to Be True”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4,53,8,55,54,52],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":665,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trowzersakimbo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}