Hi Walt, Thanks for the interest in Joni's paintings. I majored in painting and earned a master's degree. What I learned about painting then could fill a thimble. The same frustrations Joni had in art school was shared by so many of us. We were eager to learn, but sold short by a well intended movement. -So much for good intentions. Modern art was the death knell of art instruction. Thankfully, the tide is turning. I'm learning to paint. Joni's learning to paint. I just hope I don't have to learn to compose music. Please, Joni. Please. 3 more cd's on the level of Hejira is all I ask. Now is that too much? I think not.
Somewhere in the 13th century, Artist nailed down the principles of painting form (the illusion of 3 dimensional mass and volume). The strongest way to convey volume is rendering the effects of light and shadow on forms. It's the value diffences of light reflected off forms that create the illusion. Drawing this was easy. Painting it another thing. What solved the problem was figuring out how to degrees of light and dark (in color) as one would drawing it in black and white. The solution artists arrived at was pre-mixing values of color. Egg tempera was the general method of painting back then. Egg yolk, water and powdered pigment equalled paint. The problem with this paint is it dries too fast to blend colors. The solution artists arrived at was pre-mixing values of color from light to dark. Having the spectrum of color value to work from, it was 'just' a matter of laying the right values of color next to each other. When oil painting was invented, the artist still applied the old technique of pre-mixing color values ahead of time. So in a sense, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titian, Raphael all painted by numbers. Make a scale of light to dark in black and white, then mix colors of equal values from light to dark. Substitute the proper hues for the underpainting of proper values, and boom: form. The more accurate the color values, the more 'real' the illusion of form. -Beginning with the impressionists, the idea of preset mixes of color was replaced by 'open' palettes. Colors squished out of the tube and freely intermixed. The made for great "hue" painting. In time, the lesson of color value became more and more 'lost.' An in turn, form becomes more and more flat. With all the colors squeezed out and freely mixed, the average person would look at this pretty collection of hues and think that making painting was about getting the 'color' right, when they should be thinking about getting both the hue and value right. Joni is on the cusp of understanding this. If she's squinting, she's squinting to see value, not color. Color is gauged with eyes wide open. Value is better seen by squinting to eliminate some of the saturation of hue... make it appear greyer, so to speak. Grey scales held up to the object, and placed underneath the glass of the paint palette is the ultimate tool for form painting. -In comparison to the impressionists way, it can seem dry. It depends on what you want your painting to look like. Going for a Matisse look, open palette. But if you want the work to look like Vermeer, Sargent, or Norman Rockwell, it's time to think values. I think Joni is looking for a happy medium between the two. She wants the freedom, but craves the form as well. Part of her duality, I think. Sorry to all for the art lesson. John.
