This Week’s Art Practice

This week, I continued working through both Bhavani Krishnan’s Study with the Masters course and Arthur Gain’s Alla Prima Challenge. For Bhavani’s course, I studied a painting by Isaak Levitan. 

One of the biggest frustrations was trying to judge the colors and values from my iPad screen. No matter how much I adjusted the brightness or viewing angle, I could never be sure if I was seeing the true colors. Then, after I had finished my study, I randomly came across the same painting online from a different source—and it looked completely different from what I had been referencing. My study dried darker than I expected for some reason but I really enjoyed learning from Levitan’s work. His landscapes have such a beautiful sense of atmosphere and mood, and even with the color uncertainty, the process of studying his approach was rewarding.

For Arthur Gain’s course, I continued working on the same Anna portrait, focusing on refining the lips and eyes. This exercise was especially helpful when I worked on the lips in my daughter’s portrait. I’ve been making steady progress there too, and while I’m not completely happy with it, I feel like I’m almost ready to get to the finishing touches and call it done. I need to move on to something new!