Storylines, Storylines....and more.....

Ok, so now we are into the storyline part of the painting and if you know me and have read any of my books you will know that I can't do a painting without some sort of story being told.

Let me explain why.

We all travel through life engaging others in one way or another. We dont live isolated . The level of interaction varies however from one person to another... and that is often reflected in the number of stories one can tell about 'this or that or whatever'. We all have a story 'bank' of experiences and for me, being bought up in a pretty isolated village of 30 people or so till 15 surrounded by mountains, bananas, mountain lorrikeets, river kingfishers and then going on to university etc., gave me a flying start to experiences I must say. Chillingham had just 1 shop and 1 butcher.

The General Store

But it had a waterfall,steep hills draped in bananas and a small fast flowing river that drained away the 60 inches of rain that fell each year.So I had a ball exploring, inventing and imagining!

 I had a pretty good place to muck around in!

From there with a scholarship under my belt I left for the 'big smoke' and my 'urbanization'. Part of my time in that little valley was spent riding horses-saddless and shoeless, of course and that brings me to a known starting point for the story in the painting.

Just about every painting I do has a connection to an experience I have had in my own life. Adventure paintings, western paintings, romantic paintings and so on, have ingredients that I have seen or experienced myslef. Not to make a painting have such a personal relevance is to not complete the painting. But I must say also that often a scene is in itself a complete painting and the 'story' is in the light or the drama or some other 'captivating element' the artist eye sees that triggers the emotional response. After all storyteling is about gathering in some sort of emotion in others.

In my 'Romantic Oil Painting Made Easy' book which still sells everywhere, and has a few flaws, but allowing for the 3 weeks I wrote it that is to be expected.-but I do 8 paintings and all have a story embedded in them.

The other books, 'Nostalgic Oil Painting Made Easy" and 'Painting Cowboys and the Old West', likewise have paintings that tell a story one way or another.

In the book I am presently writing, 'Absolutely Everything You Need To Know To Be a Successful Artist before You Die' I devote 3 chapters to not just how to do the painting, but how to develop a story, and the mind blasting combination and permutations that are available to a fertile mind. I think I came up with well over 1000 storylines for a simple beach painting! Imagine if each one returned $500 what that runs out to!

We dont need to reinvent the wheel just see it in different ways!

Anyhow back to the painting. So its going to a couple of cowboys in yellow slickers pausing for a moment to discuss something....thats it! Simple, commonplace and believable.

Now at the right of this column there is a video clip of me painting my dog Bullet and if you take a moment to view it you will see one way of drawing figures in a painting. Might seem a bit basic but thats what you will get from me-nuts and bolts!

This will give you a flying start. Here's what I have done as my first step. And its simple as pie...I've followed the shape and colored in...and that folks is something we ALL can do  SINCE we did it as kids! RIGHT!

If you have a close look you will see I have just stroked in the areas with the basic colors and some of the main light areas...nothing fancy AND I'm not going to try to finish it at this time. I will wait for an hour or so and then come back at it...for 2 reasons: 1) let that paint dry a bit, and  2) I want to be fresh in my head and hand since this requires deftness from both! I'll put up the source photo tomorrow if I can find it! My studio is a mess......

Gasp!