Like gardening and photography, my artistic efforts, especially painting, have taken a hit in the last two years. I don’t pretend to be an artist, but I have seen encouraging progress since I started in the summer of 2020. Unfortunately, my efforts have been in spurts. Typically, a few weeks of activity have been followed by a few months of downtime. It is easier to get comfortable drawing than painting, so while I have had a few rounds of drawing over the past year, painting has been on hold for the last 18 months. However, things are looking up!
I used the time away to study more theory, which has been far more helpful than expected. Back in 2020, I looked at painting tutorials on YouTube, and they seemed simple enough. I could follow along okay until I was required to mix colors. Mine never looked like those on screen. That is when I learned that there is no such thing as “yellow.” Instead, there is yellow ochre, Naples yellow, cadmium yellow, and even warm and cool yellows. I had the wrong yellows—and blues, reds, and even whites. Paints have a hue (depth of color), an opacity (ability to cover over), and can be warm or cool. When mixing paint, all of these properties come into play. I needed different paints.
Paint also comes in quality levels—professional paints have more pigment than student-level paints. I had the cheaper paint, which I bought because it was affordable. After all, who wants to spend money on art supplies only to discover the best they can do is fingerpainting?
Eventually, I settled on a few tubes of pro-level paints and decided to devote some time to understanding mixing. Happily, the time spent studying has paid off. Mixing is no longer mysterious, and the tutorials make sense. I even daydream about mixing colors—it’s time to paint…
Drawing has gone a little better. One thing I find especially intriguing is what I call “delayed learning.” Every time I come back to drawing after being away for a few months, I find I am better at drawing things I could not draw before. It is as if thinking about drawing has helped me develop better observational skills. I seem to notice details that escaped me in the past. I can’t explain it. Hand-eye coordination practice has helped me better gauge curves and angles, so much less erasing happens during a drawing session. I finally drew a nose that looks like a nose. It’s simple and rough, but it’s obviously a nose—which, for me, is saying quite a bit.
Although I’m trying to draw faces, my aim is still life paintings and drawings. Now that it seems I will be able to practice more, I am eager to see how much I can progress. I’m praying this is the winter of my discontent and hoping for an art-filled spring.
