Someone asked me yesterday what I've learned in the last 500 paintings. For what it's worth, here's what's topmost on my mind:
The most difficult thing about realism (even impressionistic realism) is ... getting things to look REAL. However, if you can pull it off, it is most impressive. And the way to make things look real is to be accurate with proportion and value. And the way to be accurate with proportion and value is to teach yourself to always compare each distance/value with the WHOLE scene (SQUINT!!!!). It's all too easy to get tunnel vision when we draw/paint and only compare within what we're focused on (it's because of the way our brains work). When we do this we lack the big picture and proportion/value are much more likely to be incorrect.
I've also learned some interesting things about edges, but those are better demonstrated than spoken. So, I am going out on a limb here and setting a deadline for myself. I will post a demo video within one ... two months. How about that? (I'm going to hate myself for this, I know it)
