Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver
Winter Wandering, 18x24 oil on canvas
How many times have you been out painting (or painting at home for that matter) and thought you had a great painting only to view it later and find out it's a big picture of "blah"! If you've had this trouble, its because of poor value relationships. They're just all too close to the same.
I have the hardest time getting values right on some paintings! Some of the hardest subjects seem like they would be the easiest, but not so for me. Things like white cups, white walls, or white anything that's up close in my sight. Same for green fields, green trees, green everything all in the same scene. Sometimes I'm on the ball and am mentally prepared. Others, not so much.
Value Viewer to the rescue! Value Viewer is a great little app (possibly only for iphones, but I don't know for sure). It costs $4.99 and simple to use. You either take a photo of your painting, your scene, or both. In the app you open the photo and are able to see it in grayscale, black and white notan or in a 3 value notan called levels.
You can adjust the percentage of each value if you wish, but I mostly use it just to see what I'm missing. Or if I'm smart, I snap the scene before I begin painting and get a good fix on where I want my values to be, before I get to wielding that brush!
I'm going to recommend it to all my workshop students! Do you use Value Viewer? Would you consider using something like this to help you with your paintings?
Aspens at Boxelder, 20x16, oil on canvas
I have a workshop in Casper, Wyoming, for people who want to paint outdoors, in September. Click here for more info. I'd love to do a workshop in your area too! Email me if you'd like more info.
Have you ever entered a show, only to lose half the info and spend precious time and energy tracking it down? Or have you wanted to enter a show you've entered in the past, but can't remember what you entered? I have! This year, in an effort to clean up my act, I've implemented a very simple system for keeping my head above water in this area.
The last blog post I did on organizing explained the system I use to keep track of my painting images on my computer. (Not so much as to where the actual paintings are). It's pretty simple and straightforward. My system for organizing shows is just as simple. Again, I'm sure there are better ways to do this, but I've found this is what works for me.
I have two folders, one titled Shows Current and one titled Shows Past. I will make a folder titled 2016 Shows at the end of the year, in which I will put both of these folders. Obviously, I have the shows I'm currently involved in, in the Shows Current folder. When a show is over I move it's folder to the Shows Past folder.
In the respective Current and Past folders, I have a folder for each show. In the individual show folder I have all the info pertaining to that show. It holds the prospectus, the images I've sent, any lodging, shipping etc info and communications concerning that show. Some shows have much more info than others. It doesn't matter, I just put everything into it's folder. Once the show is over, I make notes in Pages and add those to the folder and move the folder to the Shows Past folder.
A word about the images. I use the images from my Large folder to resize according to the specifications of whatever show they're going in. When I save them I use the initials or some abbreviation of the show at the front of the file name to differentiate from my other copies of these images or whatever designation the particular show requires.
My old system was to tack the printed info to a bulletin board with handwritten notes all over the pages. Every time I wanted to check on something pertaining to a show, I'd have to hunt down various things. I still do tack those pages to the bulletin board sometimes, but it's much nicer to have everything at my fingertips!
It's about as hands on as you can get, short of using paper for everything. If you're a hands on kind of person like me, you might try this. Or maybe you have a much better system I would like to know about!
