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| 6/11/18 Maple Leaf neighborhood |
It had interesting shadows under the eaves and an
asymmetrical porch with both an archway and
a small window shaped like a miter – all of which caught my eye. (What
architectural style could this possibly be?) But I was doomed by the cluttered
composition: Two cars, one on each side of the street, partially blocked my
view. And although I have a thing for utility poles and lines, they weren’t
doing much for this composition, and I should have left them out. On top of all
that, I was a bit troubled by the house’s dark gray color. I told myself all of
this before I began, and yet I proceeded.
I had recently read Marc Holmes say, “the sooner you can sense the need to bail-out, the better.
Save your energy for the re-do!” I’ve even heard myself give that advice
to others: As soon as you know it’s going badly, it’s easier to just stop and
start over. The hard part is listening to my own sage advice.
On the other hand, I can think of a million worse ways to spend my time than making a sorry sketch on a sunny June afternoon.
Good advice. For me the trick is to be able to identify whether it's going badly before its going badly. Mostly I do this by ignoring the common internet advice of "just go for it" and "use pen only or you'll die" Instead, I'll start any complex composition with a pencil, drawing boxes and blobs that establish the composition and let me envision it on paper. Then I can start drawing inside those boxes and blobs knowing that it will go well, or at least as well as it does with me holding the pen (grin).
ReplyDeleteA sound strategy, Larry! I thought I was following the same one, but hindsight is always 20-20. ;-)
Delete- Tina