During the summers it seems as of years past, this is four to be exact, I have spent time in the studio painting. Painting a lot getting ready for a fall showing. My shows usually consist of a theme. It is easier for me to paint that way as the mood is set and not jumping around from subject to subject. So, it is important to select a theme of interest so you can do a good job with your paintings. I don’t know how everyone else does this, but it works for me.  

Even though an artist works in a theme or series, there can be many variations within that area. Unless you have chosen a fairly loose theme with many possibilities, you may be slightly restricted to your subjects. Usually, you paint at least 20 paintings for a one-artist show. By the time you have painted that many canvasses you become very much aware of the subject matter within that theme. With that in mind, it is probably best to choose a series you have some familiarity with for working. I laughed to myself in the theme I am presently working on as I painted a fairly large canvas with two stocky work horses pulling a harrow. I had never painted a horse before. I thought, this is really nervy to paint something for a show of all things that I have never worked on before. The challenge wasn’t as great as I thought it was going to be, and it turned out pretty well. I had experience as a kid with a team of horses pulling a plow as this is the way my grandfather farmed. Nothing like first-hand experience. The same thing was true of cows and pigs. Never painted those before either but they look fairly decent.  

There was one piece working of two people standing in an open doorway.  I had worked on the color of the faces for days. The man, who was directly in the open door, which was very dark behind his head, looked good, his color worked well. But his wife, who was standing against the door itself, looked washed out. No matter what I did with the color she looked pale. I couldn’t figure out why. Finally, it dawned on me she was light against a light background. Well, you know what that does, it washes out the subject. So, to remedy that I put a windowpane in the door which was also dark. Bingo! Her color looked great. I just had to remember what I preach all the time, light against dark, dark against light. Duhhh. LOL 

If you hit a glitch in your work where you cannot solve the problem, bounce it off someone else, or take some time to think about the problem. The reason why the problem exists, think about technique, it will usually produce an answer. Sometimes we underestimate ourselves, sometimes we over-think or don’t do it enough. Problem solved!