In my desire to improve my paintings I am trying to make more effective use of shadow. I am hoping to create convincing space while preserving that sense of otherness. I am still digesting the feedback from PAFA (not to mention my friend, the artist Judithe Hernandez) , namely the uniformity of light and lack of obvious shadow in much of my work. I have defended this in the past as some tribute to early Renaissance paintings, and there is truth to that, but it is also true that I really just do not understand shadows that much.
To remedy that I have constructed a cardboard mock-up of the painting I am working on.
Obviously I would need quite a large cardboard box ( and many more mannequins ) to get a truly accurate sense of space and light, but editing the image into in monochrome has clarified things quite a bit. I have also translated the image of the painting into black and white (thank you Judithe!) and that should be enormously helpful as a roadmap; already I see area I would like to heighten and diminish.
I will fiddle around some more but feel I have a better inkling of where to go. Kind of.
Just another twist in this journey of self discovery, it is often very humbling how little I know…
Boondocks Babylon 