Karen Cooper

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4/28/2010 9:29:03 AM

Toast, And Paying Attention To Detail

Cooper / 1 Comment
Topics: about painting | composing a painting 
Greetings,

Welcome to the Cooper studio, Jefferson, Iowa, on a bee-you-tiful Wednesday, April 28th.

I just got back from the morning run---yup---survived yet another one.  I was on the homeward bound side of the distance, which means the south end of Chestnut Street.  There, amidst the blooming trees smells, was another very distinctive odor:  burnt toast.  Someone wasn't paying attention to the details, and either the toast didn't pop, or the setting got bumped up---doesn't matter, the result was burnt toast.  Somebody wasn't paying attention.

Not paying attention can mess up other things too.  Take a painting for instance.  You knew I was going to say that, right? :)  I would like to point out that burnt toast and a poorly composed painting have some things in common.

1.  Lack of attention to detail= poor results.
2.  Dismay when you realize what you've done
3.  Decision required = live with the mess as is, or clean it up?

I promote that paying attention to details in the rules of composing a painting is pretty much mandatory.  Google will tell you a bunch of places to read all those rules, one of my favorites being a blog written by Diane Mize.  Basically they all talk about dividing up the space of the canvas and where you put what.  Sounds simple, eh?  And I would love to say that all the rules of good composition are so firmly planted in my brain, that I don't even have to think, just act.  Nope.  'Taint so.

I have been painting away on a large canvas, and decided that yesterday was a good day to take a break from it.  I had a photo reference that had been holding on the back burner for a while---it seemed like a good time to pull it out.  I'd already spent quite a bit of time with this photo, sketching from it, messing with it on my photo program---I knew how I wanted it to happen.  But just for the heck of it, I did the paper cutout "compositional" trick, big paper cutouts resembling the subject matter.  I stuck them on the canvas just like I knew they were going to go, and oooops.  Why hadn't I seen that before?  That lovely (not!) diagonal line running corner to corner right smack dab across the canvas?  Now that's a compositional rule lodged in the back of my brain:  never cut a canvas in half, especially corner to corner, with a line.

Where was my attention to detail?  The toast almost got burnt!  Hey, wait---did you see that word "almost"?  Maybe I just lucked out, or maybe that was stored away knowledge that nudged me to try one more "compositional experiment" before committing to paint on canvas?  Maybe I'm actually getting there, you know, that place of higher knowledge achieved through the school of experience?  

Think about the toast.  If you don't pay attention to detail and burn the toast, then you've got to decide, do I go ahead and eat it or make another piece?  And what about that lingering smell?  How long is that going to hang around?  And who might see the burnt toast and know that I wasn't paying attention to the details?  May I point out to you that paint and canvas are really more of a committment than a piece of bread turned into toast?  I suggest that paying attention to the details of a good composition before putting paint on the canvas will make for a happier day.  And painting.

Thanks for stopping by.
Later, Cooper

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1 Response to Toast, And Paying Attention To Detail

What a WONDERFUL post... a good reminder for us all but put so brilliantly....

I loved it.

So will we ever see your painting or did you scrape it???

Posted by Marian Fortunati · via karencooperpaintings.com · 198 months ago

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