IMC: Day 5 (Wednesday)

Okay, at this point, I was feeling pretty good, since my color compositions worked out well and I got some rest (3 - 4 hours). I started my block-in color phase in the morning and thought that it was going okay.

Then, it happened.... this day was just awful. Maybe I was more sensitive because I was tired. I don't know. Maybe it was just the pressure and I'm no longer used to it, I don't know. I do know that I was in a pretty depressed mood that day. So, what happened?

So, Greg Manchess (who's work I absolutely admire) started taking a look at my painting and my current portfolio. First thing that he asked was "How long that I've been doing oil painting". So, I mentioned about 3 years or so. He thought so. He commented that the sky and land had horizontal strokes and trees were mainly vertical strokes. I used dots as flowers, I didn't mass properly (in the trees) and whole litany of things that were wrong about how I paint. Then he mentioned that he and Scott Fischer would stop by later to show me how to use my brushes with oil painting.

From there, I started doubting everything that I knew about painting. By now, my ego is pretty crushed. By that night, I wasn't even sure that I should have even been there. I was looking all around me and everybody was doing great. The paintings were coming along, etc. Mine looked like a child did it and it wasn't even completed.

I was feeling pretty down. Rather than working on my painting, I just sat there, did some sketches that were really really weird and just let my emotions dump out onto the paper.

That night, Scott Fischer came by and gave some instruction about how to use the brush and various strokes. We talked about effective ways to lay down lines using the square-headed brushes. We talked about how to change the shape of the line by changing the stroke, etc. It was incredibly informative.

Greg came by, that night, told me to not look so glum and gave some instruction about how to paint using his style. Now, Greg's style, I absolutely love. He places a stroke down and then places another one. The strokes are generally at different angles, but each one has a different value. Therefore, you are left with a painterly look, but not static. It's gorgeous stuff. So, since I was here to learn and not finish my painting, I decided to just get to work and see what he has to teach.

After some false starts, I started understanding about the stroke and placement of the stroke relative to values. So, I played a little bit with the strokes on my main character's jacket, and after a while, it started looking "eh". Not great. By that time, I had to go home and get some sleep.