Larry Moore’s creative realism workshop was different from other plein air workshops. Usually the instructor demonstrates a complete painting. Instead, Larry talked about breaking the process down into steps. He gave us exercises to practice for each step.
His first concept was notan, a Japanese term for the play of light and dark. This is also called a two-value study. The idea is to look at your subject and paint everything in shadow black and leave the light areas white. Focus on making an interesting composition with a variety of large and small shapes. Don’t repeat the same shape over and over until it forms a pattern.
After notan, we moved on to a 3-value study using black and white paint. You could make the value range black, white, and mid-value gray. You also had the choice to make a high or low key painting by limiting the value range. For example, make a high key painting using white, light gray and middle-value gray.
For the exercise, we divided our supports into four small sections. We wanted to remind ourselves these were studies and not complete paintings. We made several value studies of a scene, trying to see how many different ways we could do it. It’s a good exercise for practicing composition.
Once you have established a value structure, you can add any color as long as they match the original value.
Do you do value studies like this on location? Or do you always feel that you have to finish a painting whenever you paint on location? Do you feel that taping off small sections would remind you it’s a study and to move on to the next idea?
If you would like to try Larry Moore’s exercises, see his book Fishing for Elephants.
5 Comments
Very interesting concept. I understand the value of this process.
If I ever have time to paint again, I will keep this lesson in mind.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Sue. Hope you will be able to paint again soon!
I’m interested in knowing which of the above studies you chose or would have chosen to paint. I’ve yet to paint plain air, but his ideas make so much sense, especially the idea of the 4 sections so as not to be drawn into wanting to finish a study. I have some beautiful landscape photos that I’m interested in applying this practice to. Thanks for sharing this information.
I think I would have chosen the one in the upper right corner. I would have put more variation in the trees shapes in the next version. Making several designs from the same location or photo can lead to ideas you didn’t see at first glance.
I’ve shared this with a friend. She says,”Thank you.”