Instead of following a map, I had to just start looking and listening and responding to what I saw. What a discovery: I became much more attuned to my senses, noticed colors, edges, shapes throughout the painting process in a way I don't always--because I am thinking about where I'm going, not where I am now. [...]
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Sometimes I love a painting right from the start, and send it joyfully into the world. And then again sometimes a painting will seem to linger, leaning uncertainly against my studio wall. Here's the story of how I gained perspective on one recent painting. By literally giving it the brush off, I discovered its true beauty. [...]
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The key to any good composition is to recognize it first as an abstract pattern. This means simplifying the scene into shapes rather than things. The scene caught me with its interesting pattern of lights and darks. [...]
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One thing is certain: a safe painting will never be a wow painting. High-impact paintings take risks. They make strong statements with mood, color, composition, texture, design, edge. So in order to paint a wow painting, try letting go of your fear. [...]
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Taking a painting to the next level requires more than a good plan. It's got to mean something to you. Simply put, if you want your painting to elicit a strong response, you'd better feel a strong connection to it yourself. [...]
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The human eye can distinguish more shades of green than any other color. For artists this is a blessing and a curse. We can easily recognize when greens are ‘wrong' in a painting in the same way that we can recognize when the human face or figure is wrong. It's not so much that these things are harder to paint, but that we're better at detecting when things are off. [...]
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