21st Century Reducing Glass

 

Photo: Ewan McClure

I have written previously about the reducing glass (pictured above).  It is the opposite of a magnifying glass--it can be held up to a painting to reduce a large area to a small view.  The idea is that is helps you see the work as a whole, in one glance, rather than getting caught up in details.  The reducing glass has been an artist's tool for decades (maybe centuries?).

Photo: Art Apprentice Online

Now along comes the smart phone, complete with digital camera.  There are a lot of apps that painters can use on their phones, from value finders to composition grids and more.  Personally, I don't use any of those.  But I do use the camera on my iPhone as a modern day reducing glass.  One quick click, and a 30 x 40 inch painting appears on the phone as a 2 inch image.  Quite amazing, really.  Check out how it works with the two images below.

It is astonishing what you can learn when your painting is reduced to a thumbnail size like this.  You can quickly see the major masses or shapes, and the overall pattern of lights and darks.  Those are the things that make or break a painting!  Yet so often we get caught up in drawing a tree or a fence that we lose track of the big picture.  Camera (aka "reducing glass") to the rescue! (There is a life lesson here.  Something about seeing the forest for the trees...).

And I might add:  how many times have I thought a painting was completed, but when I photographed it for my website, and looked at the image on a little digital screen, I saw a glaring problem?  Countless times!  Then it's always back to the easel.  I think we should all add the smart phone camera to our list of favorite studio tools...

It's Black and White

Arthur Wesley Dow

I have recently been thinking a lot about notans, and trying to use them more in my painting process. What, you might ask, is a notan?  "Notan" is a Japanese word that means, roughly, "light-dark balance". I think of a notan as a black and white image of the subject. I am coming to believe that the notan is an invaluable tool in making good compositions, and therefore good paintings.

Left: James McNeill Whistler, "Symphony in White No. 2,
The Little White Girl", oil on canvas, 1864

A painting involves many elements. But at its heart, it's the arrangement of dark and light shapes that makes or breaks the painting. A painting that is broken up into a bunch of random areas of dark and light appears "dot-y" and busy. It's

Progress Photos

First idea: "Belvedere", (c) Lesley Powell 2015

Faithful readers may recall an earlier post about using a camera to preserve the early stages of my favorite paintings. Sometimes I sense that I am onto something good, right from the start--and in that case I often snap a few shots of the work in progress. The idea is to keep a record of what I found exciting and interesting. Later, if I start to over-think and over-work the painting (always a danger!), I refer back to the earlier photo. It helps me recapture the thrill of discovery, and it refreshes my memory about what I loved.

First idea: "Cobbled Together", (c) Lesley Powell 2015

I thought it would be interesting to show a few of these "eureka" photos. The top image is the first touch of ink to canvas for my painting "Belvedere". I was immediately pleased with the pattern of the fields and the sense of the curvature of the earth. Somewhere along the line

Another Studio Friend

I recently wrote about the mirror, and how it can be a painter's best friend. I have also been reflecting (pun intended--ha!) on the camera, and how I use it in my self-critique process when I'm alone in the studio.

Like my mirror, my camera is always close at hand when I'm painting. One thing I ldo is take shots of my work during the "drawing" phase. These shots serve two main purposes. First, they provide a different visual perspective. Because of this, they, like the mirror, help my eye catch errors that I might have become immune to during my work. Second, they help me remember the energy of the drawing. When my drawing is going successfully, I feel a little thrill of excitement. I try to keep this excitement going through the painting process, and to avoid losing the parts of the drawing that thrill me. Here's an image of my start on a recent painting:

Having an image of the drawing at hand as I work on the painting helps me recapture the joy of the start. It also helps me correct for areas where I might go astray during the painting process. If I'm liking the way I'm putting the paint on the canvas, I might also photograph some steps along the way, like this:

As I look back on this now, I can see some ways I deviated from the initial drawing. I think I liked the angle at which the left edge of the sheet was hanging out of the basket better in the drawing than in the painting (though the painting is more true to the actual set-up). Ah well, it will have to remain as it is, since I have finished the painting and it is dry. Despite this little "catch", I'm very pleased with the overall result. Here's the finished product: 

"Laundry Day"
(c) Lesley Powell
12 x 16, oil on linen

Stay tuned for more in the "laundry series", and for more about my little helpers in the studio...