I was browsing through my favorite artists (see right side bar) and came across this painting by Charles Movalli. Wow! This is how I want to paint, with abandon: free brush work, inventive color, you can see the excitement in this piece. Movalli studied with Emille Gruppe, who I’m currently reading. I found an out-of-print edition of his book on painting on Amazon, and am devouring it now.
I find now that when I paint most of my work with my glasses down, I get the big shapes and colors more accurately. I do still need to loosen up! A margarita works occassionally :-0 Other than that, what do you do to relax when you paint? Do you think you should?
Maybe try taking your glasses off?
Monet’s huge paintings of the waterlilies (Les Nympheas) in in Paris move me to tears when I see them. They were painted by Monet at a time when he couldn’t see very well at all and yet they’re absolutely wonderful
The thing I notice about the Movali painting is what a great sense of tone and delicious coloured browns and greys he has.
I enjoy your work a lot. You are pretty loose and their is excitement in your art. Speaking of Gruppe, About 10 years ago in Naples FL I got to view a whole room of Gruppes all by my self. Wow!
A breath taking painting indeed!
Yes, I would definitely like to loosen up, but I don’t feel like forcing it too much. It would be great if it comes from within of course -if I sort of know what I am doing. But I sometimes deliberately paint when I am very tired, trying to catch the brain off guard.. needless to say that it doesn’t always work…
Yes, I do paint without my glasses. That really helps me paint more loosley and get the big shapes and colors right. I’m still working on it, though. I agree with Bart. This is something you can’t rush. I think you need a foundation of basic paint handling, values, composition, color mixing, before you can’t paint loosely because it takes real confidence to do so.
Ed,
Just discovered your website and really enjoy looking at your work. I’ve found that if I paint a particular image several times I’m able to loosen up a little more each time. The first few times seem to take the longest with the least satisfying results.
Steve
yes, i like the idea too of a series to loosen up. the more familiar you are with a subject, the less you have to think about, and therefore the more free you can be. I think I’ll do a series on Crystal Springs since it’s local, easy to get to for a quick study and interesting to paint.
You may also like some stuff I saw recently at WhoPaints.com mostly arcadian watercolors but great stuff !
hey, great news! THE Charles Movalli left a comment on my blog yesterday. He left it on this post: https://edterpening.com/blog/?p=351