Painting with Peggie

Lessons I learned from Peggi Kroll
1. By examining and copying the work of other artists, i learned that i can be introduced to different types of art. I thought the way i had always been painting was the only way i could paint well, but after looking and copying other artists' techniques, i know now that i can have fun and express and experiment with my artwork.
2. I learned about abstracting reality. Peggie Kroll simplifies what she is looking at. With her work, less detail is better because you can appreciate the simple color shapes that can be found in everyday objects.

3. By "mapping" out colors, you draw the shapes and their boundaries with other color shapes. Doing this makes it easier when painting your colors because its easier to see where you should drop certain colors. Color mapping is almost like number painting except you're not drawing numbers in the areas.
4.

•  start simple, because if you start with detail there is nothing else to add
• paint quickly, its more exciting
• if you hold your brush further out on the handle and not like a pencil, you get more options as to what kind of brush strokes you can do
• abstract is different from ____. Abstract is taking things from reality and making it a little distorted, but you can still tell what the object is
• what is the point of painting something to look exactly like a picture?
• use a thick brush, i was using an "eyelash" brush. You can get enough detail using the edge of a thick brush

   
5. At first, I struggled with this project because i tried to add too much detail and too quickly. Mr. Gaudreau helped me understand that i needed to paint quicker and with bigger brush strokes. He said by painting slow, little brush strokes, it was making it more difficult for me to simplify the painting. Also, he introduced to me the idea that i should hold my brush differently so i could paint different types of brush strokes. Before, I was holding my brush like a pencil.

6. Oil Paint is made up of actual oil, so it dries really slow. Oil Pastel is the solid version of oil paint. Acrylic paint is a plastic based paint, so it dries quickly. Use small amounts of paint because it goes a long way and if you squeeze too much acrylic out, it could dry up and you would waste it.

7. Watching the Alla Prima painting, I learned that each brush stroke should have a defined purpose. The artist painted fast however, you could tell that he intended each brush stroke to be where it was based off of how thick or thin each stroke was and how he twisted his paintbrush. Also, towards the end of the video when the artist added fake words instead of actual words because its way easier than trying to actually do the letters. The artwork suggests and implies to the viewer that there are words there, when the really is not a single word.

8. Peggie Kroll used a few elements of design in the artwork i copied. Some of these elements include: cropping, overlapping, and a broad value scale. She used a defined light source to give really bright highlights on the objects and very dark shadows.

9. When describing a style of painting, "painterly" is used to describe a painting that looks like a painting, not a picture. You can see the brush strokes and the different textures, even the colors not fully blended sometimes.  

10. I learned that impressionism or abstract art can be way more exciting than photo-realistic paintings. When you paint quicker you don't worry about how its going to look, you just express yourself and i think that is really beautiful, so i cant wait to bring that into my next painting.