In the latest news in this circus I call my life, I have sold my current home (literally; the money is in the bank) and I am desperately searching for a new home in an unbelievably challenging environment. I think I have found one; all the offers have been agreed to, but you never know with real estate.
On this note, this weekend I spent time down at Mom’s beach house. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time there, taking a load of various items each time. The irony of spending a year taking things out of her house and taking them to Salem, just to turn around a reverse the process is not lost on me. But, no matter what, I will have a housing gap in Salem, so I’m using the situation to spend some quality, quarantined time on the coast.
One thing I have already moved is my entire art studio. Depending on the size of the house I select in Salem, the majority of the studio may stay down there. Those decisions, however, are far away.
Today I pulled out an item from the “to do” pile and decided to tackle it. It was Jean Pederson‘s new video, Mixed Media Portraits: Beyond Realism. I worked through the video with a photo of a horse (not a human like Jean) and here is my review. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any photos of my process, and I’m back in Salem and can offer nothing.
Review
Overall, I would give this video a solid “A”. The production values were good and the content inspirational. I will watch it again.
Jean started the viewer out making a random background of three colors with a triad of acrylic paint and squeegee. While I had heard about this technique, I had not tried it. It was fun and created interesting results.
Jean moved on to working through sketching the subject and developing a value plan. This may seem basic, but there were some very pertinent reminders about the use of each in the development of an idea.
This is the painting Jean worked on in the video. This NOT my painting.
Once sketched onto the start, Jean worked through adding darks, then lights, then textural/color interest. This stage was, obviously, the longest. It was also the stage where I longed for a large screen. The photo above shows the lovely variety of marks Jean used in the painting, but on my screen, much of that was lost. She talked a lot about using calligraphic marks and collage, but it was difficult to see the details on such a small surface.
The general techniques in this video could be easily applied to any subject the viewer wished to “modernize”. As I said, I worked on a horse painting, and by following the process, the results were good if not great. I’m excited about doing some prep work and really trying the subject and process again.