The adage “Practice makes perfect” is not quite right. Practicing your mistakes can be costly.
I spent five days with Lila Irving Lewis who is a very experienced and widely acclaimed artist and a fabulous teacher. Her massive and bold work is as energetic and appealing as her personality. For the first two days we went back to basics – painting a hundred and eight value sketches – working up from thumbnail sketches to quarter sheets of paper, half sheets and then full sheets.
Lila gave very simple instructions for a good composition. “I want to see 5 to 7 basic shapes – overlapped in places and with a variety of sizes. Three value changes dark, medium and light that you make equally important AND pay attention to the edges of the painting.” BTW Lila had to repeat these simple principles many many times during the 5 days. It is not as easy as you think!
Lila’s critiques were thorough, encouraging yet straight from the hip when she pin-pointed each person’s major challenges. The rigor of focusing on the bones of a painting was just the refresher I needed to take my work up a notch.