Another Spring in Blysmith Station 2

Monday, February 20, 2012

Another Spring in Blysmith Station 2

I've been playing around with this scene for the last three days. Normally I'd have cut my losses long before now, but I had nothing better to do than to try this and that and that might as well be on this. I re-did the building a dozen times, shape wise and color wise, as well as trying (and seeming failing) to get the lines right. As I mentioned previously, I like to use blue as my shadow color, not because most shadows are blue but because it seems to (in my eyes) imply shade. However when using these colors, a blue building looks rather wrong, like comic book coloring gone wrong, so I had to try and come up with a color for the building that looked like shade without too much blues in it. As for the building itself, I really need a reference to make it more than just a block of something, but since I'm not really very good at copying stuff, and I'm lazy, I didn't bother. Like the previous painting, this is more a journey than a destination, and while the result is not much of anything, it was a bit of an education painting it. Mainly I learned, I might want to paint something other than landscapes at the moment...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

1 comment:

ChristianFebruary 21, 2012 at 5:55 PM
I like it, love the reflections and the architectural element.
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What I'm Up To

I think artist’s statements are largely needless. Paintings speak for themselves. And yet, here I am set to rattle on about my approach to painting. Now, if you're of the same opinion as I claim to be, skip this and enjoy the paintings, but if you want a hint as to what I’m trying to do, here’s the words.

I approach painting via two different roads that arrive at the same place. The first is that I paint only “studies” or sketches. Back in the day artists painted quick studies to get the colors and features down to use as a guide to paint a finished studio painting. Funny thing is of the paintings I’ve seen together with their studies, I’ve always preferred the loose and spontaneous studies over the stiff and polished finished painting. For that reason I’ve chosen to paint only studies.

My second approach to painting is inspired by a quote from the writer, Raymond Chandler: “I guess maybe there are two types of writers, writers who write stories and writers who write writing.” He considered himself of one of the latter, as do I which is to say; writers who’s words are entertaining in and of themselves, independent of the story. Perhaps painters could be divided the same way: Painters who paint pictures and painters who paint paintings. While I don’t consider one type superior to the other, I aim to be a painter of paintings. I want to paint paintings that capture a moment, inspire or recall a memory or mood, but which, viewed longer or closer, or with one's glasses on, prove to be clearly paintings: paint brushed into shapes on a surface. That these mere shapes can create an impression they’re something else, for a moment, or at a distance is the independent interest I would like my paintings to possess, not because they realistically reproduce branches, or water or what ever, but because they don’t. What I don't want to paint is places or post card scenes, even though landscape are the medium which I use for my painting.

The Day's Work - Paintings of C. Litka

Monday, February 20, 2012