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Post by grampybone on Mar 31, 2008 11:42:40 GMT -5
Firstly, This review is based on my own personal opinion and not pulled from another site. This DVD is one I rented from Smartflix.com. If you live in the US, this is a wonderful service that rents rare DVDs that are arts/crafts related. My other option was to pay $75 for the DVD. The DVD arrived about 2 months after I ordered it, which smartflix claims was due to its popularity. You get it for a week, and then have to mail it back. The DVD starts out with Schmid describing the scene he is getting ready to paint. He is going to paint his studio, which is an nice red barn. Much of the landscape has been manipulated by him to add color and interest, such as a cloths line with sheets haning, and numerous potted plants. Schmid is in his 70’s, but had a youthful personality and repeated a lot of painting tips hat are found in his book. He taped a piece of lead coated linen to a masonite board beforehand. He was in the process of toning it an orangish color as the DVD began. Many of the background swish marks were made with paper towels, which was suprising to me. Also, when he began applying paint with a brush, he used a very large brush. He painted the shadows first, and talked to the camera throughout the painting process. The painting process is slow compared to me. I’m not sure how long the painting took overall, as the DVD was edited, but judging by the light and movement of the shadows, I’d say about 4-6 hours, maybe over a couple of days. In the beginning, he did a lot of measuring with his paintbrush. The is not much discussion on the pallette or what colors he is using. The focus was on technique. The shadows were put in with a knife to get sharp edges. The bright red part of the barn was put on very thinly with a large brush. Much of the background work was allowed to show through. He focused on the most important part first, where he wanted the viewers eye. That’s where he put in the details. For some of the potted plants, he used an old worn out brush that had about 10 hairs left on it. The outer edges of the painting were left quite plain and were mainly his preliminary work. The last half of the DVD is him back in his studio discussing how he achieves certain looks in his paintings. He discusses color harmony, his color charts, and gives a quick demonstration. It was very useful for the most part. The demonstration on how the old impressionists painted edges, however, was a bit obvious and would have rather him demonstrate how he paints trees and foliage more. Overall, I’d highly recommend this to anyone who likes him or his loose painting style. He makes it look easy, of course, but he’s been at it for 60 years.
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Post by Tim on Mar 31, 2008 11:59:40 GMT -5
Very interesting Graham ...the more you guys post the more I seem to be absorbing and it is fascinating to see that those preconceived notions of artists just using fine hair brushes is rapidly diminishing...at least in my eyes. I used to have a small brush with very few hairs left on it and it was great for line type work.
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Post by andrea on Mar 31, 2008 18:11:49 GMT -5
Sounds like a great rental service. Thank you for taking the time to review it for us. I am always amazed by the different ways people paint with oils. I saw a Bob Ross video and was bowled over with how he did trees with a fan brush. Wow, you are quicker at painting than him and yet your portraits look so perfect. I hadn't realised that it is a quick media unlike slow & steady CP's!
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Post by Joanie on Mar 31, 2008 21:48:55 GMT -5
Thanks for the review, Graham! ;D
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Post by papillon on Apr 2, 2008 14:58:47 GMT -5
Great review Grampy - thanks for doing this.
I found your reference to palette and colour harmony very interesting. One of the things I have mixed feelings about is my own use of colour. I tend to try to replicate what I see which is probably not very good artistically.
What do you think?
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Post by grampybone on Apr 3, 2008 16:46:29 GMT -5
I too have trouble with color harmony. Replicating what you see is pretty much what I do too, and when I deviate from what I see is when I run into problems. I bet this is a problem many amatuer landscape painters have.
One thing I did notice about Schmid's painting technique that may help with a more artistic style is that he would take his time and make one brushstroke or knifestroke, then clean his brush and repeat. All his brushwork was clean and as a result, the color really stuck out more than even the subject. There was no "licking the canvas" with his brush going over the same spot again and again blending and muddying the color.
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Post by Joanie on Apr 3, 2008 20:33:39 GMT -5
What Graham is saying is sooooooooooooooo absolutely true.........especially with oil painting. Wiping off your brushes/knife repeatedly is very important instead of smoosching (that's a technical term LOL) the paint all over and making a muddy mess. There are times when blending the colors is important but there are also times when applying fresh paint is just as important. In oil colors it is ALWAYS "fat over lean". Meaning appying the color lightly first and then the thicker layers of paint over the thin layers. I'm sure you already know this Graham.
This is why "seeing" a demonstration is so important to artists and why artists get so much money for their videos. LOL
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Post by papillon on Apr 4, 2008 0:24:43 GMT -5
Thanks Grampy and Joanie. Well actually with the media I use, apart from pastels there's not much chance of adding colour and blending into an already existing one. That practically impossible with acrylics since they dry so fast. I do use some "on the paper" blending with pastels but this is generally deliberate and done in order to obtain a hue I may not have in my arsenal. What I really meant about colour was whether it's ok to use as many colours as your reference contains or whether you should take artistic license with what you have and change some of what you see to make it more harmonious.... sort of improving on nature! It's odd really. Most of the comments I get about my artwork normally relates to how "colourful" it is. But I wonder if a more artistically mature eye would come up with the same reaction.
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Post by grampybone on Apr 4, 2008 16:20:40 GMT -5
Thanks Grampy and Joanie. Well actually with the media I use, apart from pastels there's not much chance of adding colour and blending into an already existing one. That practically impossible with acrylics since they dry so fast. I do use some "on the paper" blending with pastels but this is generally deliberate and done in order to obtain a hue I may not have in my arsenal. What I really meant about colour was whether it's ok to use as many colours as your reference contains or whether you should take artistic license with what you have and change some of what you see to make it more harmonious.... sort of improving on nature! It's odd really. Most of the comments I get about my artwork normally relates to how "colourful" it is. But I wonder if a more artistically mature eye would come up with the same reaction. Those are good questions and the answers are probably subjective depending on the individuals personal likes/dislikes. My feeling is that nature is already harmonious, so if there is a color I see, I try to put it on the canvas, or leave it off completely. I'm not experienced enough to know what alternative color would work with the harmony. I have figured out that if I limit my pallette to 3 colors plus white, its hard to fail with color harmony (but then I usually have trouble getting the colors to mix to the right values). Schmid says in his video that most errors with amateur painters are first -drawing errors, secondly - values, thirdly - color temperature errors.
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Post by papillon on Apr 5, 2008 10:27:18 GMT -5
Thank you again Grampy. I will try a painting with a very restricted palette one of these days. Colour is really something I probably need to control.
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