The Light and Shade of the Soul
The Light and Shade of the Soul- This, to me, whether conscious or unconscious, is what painting is about and what we connect with in the paintings we love. Join me as I explore the painting process and the way we look at paintings, through this lens. So for artists and non-artists ( although I'm convinced there's an artist in everyone, but that's another story) Each epiosode which will also form the basis of a post on Instagram and Facebook, will look at an aspect or a stage of painting. I haven't prepared this in advance, except for a very general roadmap, and the episodes may not initially be in the order of the painting process, but I think this keeps it fresh and interesting, if a little nerve-wracking for me! Eventually I'll bring them together.
The Light for Later
The first layers
The first layers of a painting are not usually for me what you might expect, that is the first layers are not a sketch composition.
No, the first layers of a painting are anticipating the fact that the painting will have very dark tones in places- I love the dark tones and I'm going to be making the dark tones as dark and as rich and/or gloomy ( whatever seems right for that painting) as I possibly can and in quite large areas of the canvas. The dark tones, and how dark they are, are absolutely crucial- Something I'll go into later.
But a painting is always a balance. It's a balance of many things that I will delve into in later episodes, a massive balancing act of many different aspects to find that perfect place where we feel everything is balanced just right to get the effect we want and that feels right to us. And one of the crucial acts of balance is the balance of dark and light. When I say baance I don't mean equality of course. A painting may be very dark or generally bright but moreof that in later epiodes.
But if I'm going to be able to have really intense dark I need to have a contrast or a variation of light too.
So I paint initial layers of something luminous or rich, that will be glimpsed in places and bring light sneaking through the dark tones in unexpected places. Those dark, maybe menacing or gloomy tones, have some light behind them after all. And even though this is just a layer of paint, there is something deeply reassuring about that, that even if we only glimpse it in places, behind it all and whatever darkness there may be in front, there is a layer of brightness and hope.
The painting process isn't always straight forward either. If you want to achieve a balance you have to juggle many aspects of the painting and this requires a lot of adjustments along the way. The light initial layers broadly map out the composition, I'm looking to see where I'm likely to need the light and there's something optimistic and reassuring about that too.
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