Painting as music :: Peindre comme la musique

“I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death” 
― Leonardo da Vinci

Today I was ruminating on the process of painting and I suddenly realized that the musical process is very similar to the painting process (as some of you know, my first degree was in music). In learning a musical piece, we actually cut it up into small sequences, and concentrate on the very demanding parts… once these parts have been mastered, then all parts can be played in a seamless manner.

Painting is similar…. as we tend to look at the most difficult parts of the painting, we practice them on scrap paper… once the logic of the angle, or of the perspective or the values or of the colours have been solved, then we can start painting our piece. So here are little bits of practice drawings to show the process… these are called thumbnails.

Aujourd’hui j’ai beaucoup réfléchi sur le processus de peindre… et il ressemble beaucoup à celui de jouer de la musique. Pour apprendre une pièce, nous nous concentrons sur les parties plus difficiles pour les maîtriser et ensuite, nous regardons la pièce dans son ensemble. Pour peindre, nous regardons les niveaux de difficulté de certaines régions de la pièce… les valeurs de tonalité, la perspective, les couleurs à utiliser, et une fois que nous avons pris la décision, nous sommes prêts à peindre le tout.

Moleskine Sketchbook
Pen: Twisbi Mini Classic EF
Colour: Noodlers #41 Brown

20131214_PaintingLikeMusic

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