Excuses...excuses! This is what I tell myself when I have free time. There is always something else to do that needs to get done before I can relax (painting can be relaxing - and also not relaxing). I always tend to come up with something to avoid it when I get a little bit of time. Oh...let me build that shelf I have been putting off...let me clean out my email of all the junk..it can go on and on. The only true time I have to paint is on the weekend or on a morning when I work evening shift and my wife is not in the house. This is a problem with a working professional and not a full time painter. Free time is a precious thing.
So, like in past posts, I think about this struggle and what will keep me on track. You have to paint so many bad paintings to get to the good ones. It is almost like a new years resolution on repeat because I did this last year. So in thinking about it I decided to pause and really focus on the basics. Maybe this is where I am lacking. Basics are a foundation for anything. If you don't have a good working knowledge of them how can you expect to grow?
So what are the basics? When it comes to painting, in my mind, it is a full understanding of color theory. Being able to manipulate your primary colors (yellow, blue and red) to make any color for any painting. This is an area that lacked in my formal education as a student. I was never really introduced to this theory in great detail. My plan to push me forward was to really focus on color mixing. SO I focused and read several chapters in some of the books I own written by some modern artists today that make sense.
Slide through the various stages of my color mixing study.
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