The art of learning and keeping an open mind.
Black and white sketch
My favourite things about painting is the experimentation, play and exploration. All these things teach me something each time I paint. Having the freedom to take risks and experiment on the painting itself is a joy to me. Sometimes it doesn’t work out and I cover it up again but more often I discover something I like and couldn’t have planned.
At the moment I am taking part in CVP, or the Creative Visionary Programme, founded by Californian Artist, Nicholas Wilton. There are many parts to it and one of them is Value Studies. Value is not how much the thing is worth! Value is the light and dark in an image or the contrast. One of our exercises was to make a painting just using black and white and only four values, black, nearly black and white and nearly white. That is a challenge for someone who loves colour like I do. The aim is to make a strong image that when viewed from a distance it shows up the contrasting shapes, whether they are representational or abstract and when you approach the painting there is a lot more to discover in the quieter parts of the painting that cannot be seen from a distance.
Not knowing what to do I took a prompt from one of the coaches, to simply draw ovals and vertical lines forming basic vessels. So I ran with that, not something I would normally do but I’m all for trying something new. The results were astonishing to me. I quickly did the thing and started painting these rough vessels with my black and white, soon becoming absorbed in the process of creating different designs on my ‘pots’ , it was great fun! I was so excited by this new thing that I immediately took out a board and started another, this time a bit more carefully. Four boards (and counting) later…
So, the moral of the story is to keep an open mind, play and experiment and enjoy the process.
The four paintings are 12 inches square in black float frames and are on my Instagram @amandajfowlerart, if you like them and are interested in buying one or more, join my email list as I will be giving my subscribers first dibs on these before they go on my website!
Til next time, enjoy the nice weather! x
