gRAPHICaNATOMY

Art is food. You can’t eat it, but it feeds you. Art has to be cheap and available to everybody. It needs to be everywhere because it is inside the world. Art soothes pain. Art wakes the sleepers. Art fights against war and stupidity. Art sings hallelujah.

Sacred cows makes the best hamburgers.

To draw a tiger one must become a tiger. You must feel the pose in your own body. You must put your own life into the creation. Re-creating the drawing by association by empathy. The object must become a real thing. A drawing must contain impressions of the artists convictions, his involvement, An object is not the outside shape, but the presence from inside.

Improving
Subject matter
• What kind of subjects do I paint?
• Do I tend to avoid certain subjects?
• How can I broaden my range of subjects?
Space
• Are the 3 distances in my picture fore, middle, distant)?
• Are similarities or differences of focus justified?
• Is there diversity of spatial organization in my pic?
Size
• Are most of my paintings, pretty much the same size and shape?
• Am I falling into compositional habits?
• Is there any good deal of variety in the formats of my painting?
Composition
• What are my compositional tendencies and preferences?
• What tendencies can I see in my doodles?
• Where is my center of interest?
• Do I use repetition in my compositions?
• How am I using visual similarities in my work?
Contrast
• Do I have enough?
• Do I have too much?
• Does contrast contribute to the meaning of my work?
Color
• What is my color scheme like?
• Do I include more colors than I really need?
• What are the relative transparencies of my color?
• How can I alter hues with the least possible intensity loss?
• Should I use more complex color mixtures?
• Does my work remember one another in overall value or value pattern?
• Do my paintings reveal good color organization or are they color chaotic?
• Have I been adventurous and imaginative as I might be about selecting colors?
• Does my work really hang together coloristically?
Lighting
• Do I tend to prefer direct or indirect lighting in my painting?
• Why do I paint subjects in the light I seem to prefer?
• Do I make good use of the effects of direct or side light?
• How often do I use top light as an option?
• Do I use back lighting in my pictures?
• Have I explored the possibilities of front lighting in my paintings?
• Do I make full use of colored light as a unifying factor?
• Have used the value of contrasts in scenes illuminates by colored light?
• Are my darks dull & lifeless or glowing and vibrant?
Darks
• Do silhouettes in my paintings accurately characterize the objects they depict?
• Am I making wise use of shadow patterns?
• Do I pay enough attention to the role of darks in preserving light shapes?
Value
• How literally do I transcribe objects and the effects of light in my paintings?
• If I do not copy exactly, what changes do I make and why?
• Are my alterations deliberate of unconsciously?
Painting Technique
• Are there areas built entirely of light and dark?
• Do my paintings have a lot of overlapped or blurred images? Why?
• Is there surface coherence?
• Which painting method do I prefer?
• Do I rely on linear strokes for clarification?
• Do I vary my brush strokes?
• Do I overlap too many brush strokes?
• Do my edges work for or against my pictorial interests?
• Ami using my edges to help define space & focus of the composition of my paintings?
• Am I using edges to unify my paintings?
• Do my paint textures tend to be bland?
• Is there too much textural contrast?