Learning From The Work of Masters

I've been looking at images on Google and Pinterest trying to learn from other painter's work.  Typing in 'Gouache,' I can see all kinds of ideas.  This is really helpful since I'm still not finding much to teach me about the medium.  As I looked, I kept coming across the work of Lawren Harris, one of Canada's Group of Seven.  Although I don't know if he used much gouache, I found myself going back again and again to see what made this artist's work so fascinating to me.

His tree shapes are just that- shapes.  I love this piece.

The work of Maynard Dixon pulls my attention in the same way.  What the work of these two painters has in common is the ability to shave away the detail and the unnecessary bits in a scene and distill it to simple, beautiful shapes, colors and textures.  This style speaks to me and makes me want to learn more.

Again, the trees are just great shapes, while the house area has very little detail added.

We spent the weekend away from home and on the drive I tried to look at the shapes of the passing countryside in a new way, in the way both Dixon and Harris depicted things.  I learned a lot.  Actually, what I learned is how much I don't know and have to figure out.  I have to learn to look at the world in a new way.

The reds in this grab the eye, leading the viewer to the tree trunks and their simplicity.

Sitting on the grass in a meadow this afternoon, I got my paints out and decided to work on a very small pine tree.  I tried to distill it down to its essentials and see it only as a series of shapes instead of seeing every single pine needle on the thing.  Although it looks like a picture from a child's coloring book, I think I can keep doing this till I am seeing in a new way.  I need to see less detail and more shape.  I need to see the values and textures instead of the things that clutter up my compositions, much like the one I posted about yesterday.

And here we have the childish and very pathetic attempts of an art student, Alice Webb.  However, I can learn this, I CAN!  

In the meantime, I am hot to find more to read about the Group of Seven.  If you get the chance, look at their work.  It is, in my opinion, magnificent.

Thanks for stopping by!  Alice