1) Set up easel in front of subject
2) Paint subject
Until this last challenge (Art By the Inch), I'd never done collages or little goofy things before. Now, with studying Kline, I'm interested in seeing how his working methods might help me.
Right after I got my digital camera in May, I wandered around the beach looking for interesting shapes and trees, and liked the way the clump of trees on the right pushed away from the water toward the land:
However, I realized what I really liked was more the idea of this scene, rather than the specifc photo of it. I liked it best as a little thumbnail. So I did some manipulation, shrinking and expanding it, etc., and then did some studies from it, and then a little painting. Here's a shot of the studio with the mess:
And the kinda finished painting -- I actually sawed the piece of luan to exact size to match dimensions of my little photo study.
I wanted to give the big negative shape of sky the same kind of weight that Kline does with his big black shapes, hence "learn" from him. Being of his time and gender, he didn't do much with the girly pastels of sky and landscape. I hope to change all that.