CindyMichaudArt: Less is More: Colorful, Creative Contour

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Less is More: Colorful, Creative Contour

Day #21 LESS IS MORE

I sat down to do penance for missing a couple days in the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge and thus bit off a very complex Japanese stone temple I had spotted at the Morikami Gardens. After erasing most of it several times I decided that my brain just wasn't ready to get around geometrically proper lines and scale. I looked up and there was my buddy and fellow painter, Carmen, sitting at an angle to me...suddenly she seemed like a good subject.

I decided to tackle a "contour line drawing" which is, in essence, just drawing the outside lines of the shapes before you. There is no need to go into detail any more than is needed for the viewer to get the idea of what is being drawn. Had I done her face there would have been no shadows so it basically would have been flat and not very face-like at all. So I stuck to a side view and had fun seeing how close I could come to a likeness by drawing only along the edges of what was in front of me.

I was actually pleased with the simplicity of this piece and remembered that old adage: "less is more." However I could not resist adding some color here and there to make it all a bit more interesting. This would be a good little piece to hang near any artist who needs to remember that more (work, line, color, detail...) is not necessarily better!