As I mentioned in the previous post, earlier this month I went to a painting workshop given by Carol Marine.  Aside from the awesome opportunity to learn from someone whose work I love, the main thing  I wanted from the workshop was to start painting more loosely and boldly. This means changing how I see which involves a lot of squinting, filtering out of unnecessary details and trying to see bigger more abstract shapes.

Doing this means letting go. I mean this in a good way when I say one of the most important things I’ve learned at the workshop is to wipe the canvas when what’s on there isn’t working. I lost count of how many times I wiped this panel down.

Another important lesson I learned is that if I’m having to wipe the canvas down repeatedly then it’s time to do some smaller studies of the subject I’m trying to paint.

Carol noticed I was struggling and she painted the flower in the bottom right to show me how to break down what I’m seeing into value shapes. Then I started again. I almost wiped the top left, but since it was just a study I left it, which was just as liberating as wiping it was previously. And now I can see the progress I made from that to the other two I painted in the upper right and bottom left.