First One In Wins

Do you like to draw? Do you like to draw with charcoal sticks?

Jumping off the diving board with three young girls will be our adventure today. The pool is cool.

First One In Wins photo by Stacy Sweeney | June 16, 2023

FIVE STEPS TO PLEIN-AIR LANDSCAPE DRAWING

One of the FIRST things I’m looking at is the composition.

Break the drawing up into 3-5 shapes.

The next thing I have to do is I have to choose what kind of day is it?

Well, this is mid morning and it’s exciting, it says the day is beginning

I need to look at the floor and decide how light the floor is. It says, Wow, the sun is hitting. This is the moment when it’s just happening. Even the shadows are transparent.

See, the drawing/painting is about the light hitting at a certain time of day. It is never about the object, Take for example the “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket” by Whistler, or Monet’s, “Wild Poppies.”

Work on refining the 3-5 shapes later when the sun has changed, because it’s more important for me to capture the quality of light NOW for this 10 minute period.

Step TWO: Compositionally make the choice. Is the viewer entering into the drawing/painting or not. I choose for you to enter the scene.

THREE: I’m looking for a radial line, which is number three. That’s where the bottom line of the composition went in and I call that a radial line. The radial line leads the viewer into the drawing/painting. But if you don’t want it, this is private property enclosed by Holly trees.

FOURTH Step: The notan or the half-tone is the percentages of light or dark. How light and how much dark is in this picture? Establish my values now. How dark is it going to be for my psychological message?

Shade each plane of my 3-5 shapes a different value.
-left plane
-top plane, land is always a top
-right plane
-front plane
-back plane
-shadow plane, the darkest plane
-sky plane
-floor is another plane, the land is not going to be the same as the sky
-things on the planes are angles going different directions

So I just have to choose which is lighter and darker and I’m saying, that’s the whole drama, is the light coming between everything!

How dark is that compared to that compared to the background compared to the white compared to this? It’s so important for me to get my eye to move from spot to spot to spot.

Sorolla is fantastic at that. His beach scenes are second to none in the world. I love the way he captures the quality of light. He doesn’t just get the value right, but he’s also playing with the temperature of the color and the intensity of the color compared to the value of color it’s next to.

Sorolla | The Wounded Foot

When all of the values are right, and I say, yeah, I like that feeling, that’s what I’m experiencing, that’s what I’m seeing, I can decide how much TEXTURE, PATTERN, SHAPE, COLOR and CONTRAST I can use before I start changing the scene.

Stacy Sweeney | First One In Wins | 9″x12″ | Charcoal on charcoal pape

Redo since my leg was darker than the floor and the floor was darker than the pool. So, the drawing is about shape.

Finally # FIVE: Looking at the scene, which half of the color wheel am I using? Yellow to red purples (warm) or blue purples to green (cool)? Who’s winning the argument, warm or cool? I choose warm.

Okay, so then I look at the warm half of the color wheel and I pick one color. I’m picking yellow.

All of a sudden my drawing/painting starts to emerge out of nothing — in seconds.

How strong is the sun today?

Plein-air landscape drawing principles from Chris diDomizio lecture May, 22, 2023

MY STORY

Why must I run ahead?
Where is it in my head that it started?
What makes me run ahead and be the first one in?
We all do certain things.
So what’s going on when I’m doing art that makes me jump ahead or be afraid to do something that’s come against me in the past?

I just came to the beach to feel the waves moving to the wind in a lyrical pattern. I’m one with nature as everything flows back and forth. See the waves that have gotten into things?