Here is an in-progress shot of another painting in the Wardensville series...I'm trying out some ideas from the recent Bill Vrscak workshop I took at the Morgantown Art Association. You can see some of Bill's wonderful paintings at his website www.billvrscak.com.
Bill uses a split primary palette - warm and cool versions of yellow, blue and red. He also stresses the use of value sketching to develop compositions, and believes that the best paintings come from the worst references -- the more the artist has to create to make a composition work, the better. Otherwise, he wonders, why go through the effort of painting a scene from a beautiful photograph? The photographer has already done the work and there's little that the artist can add to the scene.
I filled up a small notebook as he talked and worked on demo paintings -- he shared so many wonderful ideas with the group. I need to sit down and retype everything to help me digest all of the useful information.
There is good news regarding the entire Wardensville series that I'd like to share. I'm going to have a small showing of the paintings at the Wardensville High School alumni dinner this fall. I thought it would be a good venue with folks who know the town intimately. I hope the group will enjoy my efforts to bring life to the scenes we often overlook.
There's another announcement regarding the alumni dinner that I'd like to make, but I think it deserves its own post...stay tuned!
