Stop Searching - Creativity Will Find You

Creativity comes in many shapes and forms.  

It comes to you every day if you are looking for it.  

It is there for you to pick like an apple from a tree.  

 

The avove piece, Four Faces of a Woman, started as a traditional portrait but then the muse took over.  Read more about creativity and the 3 Graces by clicking on the lick below.

Creativity and the 3 Graces 

A Journey Down Paths of Gold

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Finished piece: A Golden Walk ©Gerrie Govert - pastel - 12" x 18" - $450

This landscape was started with complementary colors, strong shapes, and forms, and develops a personality of its own from there.  With each addition of something new, the painting calls for me to use the color or line in additional places to balance out the new composition, which changes as the artwork progresses.  I am done when the artwork asks: "No more."

The Dance

Line and form, 

shapes and values.  

Design, color and strokes, 

The dance has started.  

Who is leading?  Have fun.

Building a piece of artwork 

is always a mystery 

and full of surprises.

Any suggestions on a name for the finished piece?

An excercise in observation

This portrait was not started from a detailed drawing, but from a rough black and white value sketch.  From there I observed the shapes and forms, light and dark values that surrounded the figure, filling in the cools and warms where they fit.  She had a space to exist in before I even started painting her.

After the initial lay-in of shadows I started searching for form and detail.  I like the bold use of color and shapes which were inspired by the model's posture and positioning.  This piece is not done but as I finish it, I would like to retain the feelings of rapport that I built with the model during the initial sketches.

Eye See You

 Can you see all the hues captured in this piece? Or are your eyes limited to only 1 million shades?  Some people can see one hundred million different colors in a work of art!  Learn more about the science colors and vision in the article below.

Humans with Super Human Vision

Analogous Colors

Analagous colors - let's start with an example: Green is made up of yellow and blue; these colors work and play well together.  But there are also hues in between the primary and secondary colors we all know, that complement each other in a unique way that allows a painting to achieve a cohesive feeling. 

When using analogous colors, a harmony develops in a piece that you can't normally achieve when using flat primary colors.  You can see this concept at work in the above piece.  Instead of just relying on greens to create the foliage in the trees,  a variety of analogous colors including dark green, light green, yellow, blue, etc, and even green's color complement, red, combine to make the painting come alive.  To learn more about analogous colors, click on the link below:

Painting With Analogous Colors

Better paintings? Learn how here!

Are you looking for ways to improve your painting? Try these tips for taking your art to the next   level of greatness!

9 Small Adjustments for Better Paintings