How to acquire Painting Zen

[Jabberwocky]

Welcome to the forums! As a longtime lurker, I read quite a bit and have visited many painting websites and bookmarked them. Try not to get too overwhelmed with new ideas. I have a bad habit of trying to incorporate 3 or 4 new ideas or techniques into a single mini (mostly because I paint so rarely, I think) and it is easy to overwhelm yourself and end up frustrated.

The other aggravating thing for me personally is the photography of the mini. The camera is unforgiving when you get the close up shot. I am always surprised at how good the mini looks to my eye and how bad it looks after my close up shot. The transitions that my eye blends together looking at a mini 12 inches from my face rapidly become abrupt transitions on a zoom photo. So take some solace in knowing that your mini looks better in person than it does in the photo.

Jabber

 

[WorkingStiff]

Originally posted by Jabberwocky
Welcome to the forums! As a longtime lurker, I read quite a bit and have visited many painting websites and bookmarked them. Try not to get too overwhelmed with new ideas. I have a bad habit of trying to incorporate 3 or 4 new ideas or techniques into a single mini (mostly because I paint so rarely, I think) and it is easy to overwhelm yourself and end up frustrated.

The other aggravating thing for me personally is the photography of the mini. The camera is unforgiving when you get the close up shot. I am always surprised at how good the mini looks to my eye and how bad it looks after my close up shot. The transitions that my eye blends together looking at a mini 12 inches from my face rapidly become abrupt transitions on a zoom photo. So take some solace in knowing that your mini looks better in person than it does in the photo.

I appreciate hearing that! I hate using the cliche\' that my minis look better in person than the photo, but it\'s true! I keep working on my photo skills, but it seems like my close pictures tend to pick up individual brush strokes instead of tones. But that\'s a subject for another thread, right?

 

[Equus]

Hahaha...I don\'t know about most people on the forums, but a lot of the people I\'ve met say that the minis look a lot better in person, and I\'ve seen the proof with my own eyes. Good photography IS an art in itself, however, so I suppose we can\'t be too frustrated with that.

 

[JMcL63v2]

I\'ve been a member for a while, but I\'ve only just started visiting today. And why was that? Because I\'m in your boat WorkingStiff. I\'ve felt that my own skills have plateaued for a few years myself, and I\'m looking to improve because I\'m a Golden Demon aspirant (I\'m hoping I might finally make the cut at GD UK this year!). I saw the coverage of this year\'s French GD, and realised that I couldn\'t even think my way round the techniques in use, let alone actually use any of them! What I find hardest is actually figuring out how to learn. So I decided that it was time to come here and start looking around for help.:]

 

[green stuff]

@JMcL63v2 : welcome back to the mad house . I would advise you to read the CMON articles and to post your work in the WIP thread to get helpful feedback.