Still Life Discovered on the Road to Eyeries, Beara, Ireland

This panoramic painting is the banner on my new blog   AND, there are many interesting edges to be found here.

Is there anything more filled with promise than the first day of the New Year! I am excited about being back in the studio creating new work - stretching myself to get better at expressing what is in my mind and heart; and as you know, that is the on-going challenge for us all. This is the first of a weekly "conversation" that will be arriving in your inbox with a nugget of information that I hope will prove to be valuable to you. I'll do my best to make them informative and if you have ideas for subjects that would be helpful to you, please do send me an email at artist@evelyndunphy.com and let me know. And if anything isn't clear to you, tell me. Chances are that someone else feels the same way. If you would like to pass these studies on to other artist friends, please do so. So here we go!

Still Life Discovered on the Road to Eyeries, Beara, Ireland Just look at the texture of the old stone wall, the battered iron bars and the pots. There are several important lessons in this one photograph, but for this conversation we shall focus on edges. Just for fun, before you scroll down, make a list of the different edges that you can see, identify them as "hard", "lost", two similar values melted together, whatever you see.       What Do You See When You Look at the Place Where Two Planes Meet?     When I first started painting, a well-known artist from Santa Fe told me that "edges separate the professionals from the amateurs". Then and there I decided to make it a priority to learn everything I could about edges!   Look at the large pot that is mostly in shadow on it's right side. Squint so that you see the bigger shapes and don't get caught up in the details.   Here are the questions I would like you to ask: What value change do you see between the edge of the large pot on its shadowed side and the wall? Which is darker? (don't count the light patch on the wall, it's just a variation within the darker value).  Does the edge between them disappear in places? Is there a change of color between the pot and the wall? Now look at the bottom left hand corner where the edge of the pot and leg meet the background. A very different edge with a high-lighted rim and a high-light on the leg.      Painting the dark edge of the big pot against the dark mottled background. I've just painted the area where the pot meets the background as one wet in wet wash to show you the "lost" edge. Now I could add some darker value marks on the edge of the pot to separate it from the background if I wished. Notice how the shapes join together to unite the two pots to the background. We paint "shapes", not "things".  Now observe the smaller pot hanging against the right hand side of the wall. It's in the sunlight and there is only a small piece of the bottom that meets the wall.. How would you describe the edges all around the pot with the exception of this small piece? That small piece gives you an opportunity to join the dark shapes together (again, if you squint, you will see this more clearly). Do you see a value change here at the edge of the small pot, and also a color change? Is it the same, lighter or darker than the value change between the large pot and the wall? What's the difference in value range between this pot and the wall that's in shadow? The sunlit background has not been completed in this demonstration.