Plein Air and More about looking at art

 

Last week a friend and I went out looking for color.  Another friend invited us to her deck… there wasn’t much color but it was so very peaceful and a pleasant view so it didn’t matter to us that there was just a bit of color beginning.

A few posts back I said I’d post more about looking at art.  Here is more to think about….

If it’s a still life

1. Why do you think the artist choose these objects?

2. Are the objects related to each other?  How?

3. Artists plae objects in still-life paintings very carefully. If any object were removed would the painting still be balanced?

4. If the color of one or more of the objects were changed, would the picture harmony change?

5. What object is closest to the viewer? How did the artist make it appear so?

6. What object is most important to the painting?

7. Are there any things in the painting to taste or smell?

8. If you could touch the objects, what would they feel like?

When you’re looking at portraits

1. Is the person a male or a female?

2. Is the person young or old?

3. Is he/she looking at you?

4. What expression or emotion is the person showing?

5. What is the person doing?

6. What do you think he/she is thinking or is that what makes you keep looking trying to figure it out.  A good example of that is DaVinci’s Mona Lisa. 

7. How much of the person do you see?

8. Does the clothing tell you anything about the person?

9. Where is the person? In a room? In a garden?

10. Does the background have any important information?

11. Can you tell what time of day it is? What time of year is it?

And if it’s a Landscape

1. Pretend that you are walking into the painting. Where would you enter?

2. Do you have a bird’s eye view? A people’s eye view? A worm’s eye view?

3. Does the painting have a foreground, middleground, and background?

4. What is the weather like?

5. What time of day is it? How can you tell?

6. What time of year is it? How can you tell?

7. Do you think that this is a landscape that really exist, or is it imaginary?

Now if you look at my plein air you will see that as landscapes go, this one isn’t very good.  That doesn’t matter to me because it’s just a sketch done for my own enjoyment.