Today I will talk a bit about speed painting. It's bit controversial, but speed actually matters.

But let me start talking about this fabulous Sunday funday. Today definitely was. I got tons of work done in the rainy morning and when I peeked out of the roof window around 3 pm I realized something amazing happened that has not happened in weeks in Vancouver- it was sunny!

Not only that. It was also not windy and not cold. And so I took my bike out and biked the seawall all the way to Kitsilano beach, listening to some rad music on the way. Once I arrived I sit on a log on the beach, soaking in the precious sun rays while chatting on the phone with @gladysmak. Day like this is priceless after 2 weeks of ceaseless rain, as if someone forgot to turn off the shower in heavens.

On the way back I stopped on Granville island, a truly picturesque place in this weather, and put a warm spinach bagel down the system (epic food, make sure to go to bagel shop inside Granville Island Market if you happen to be in Vancouver!) as you can see from the pictures below (taken with my iPhone 8).

Back to the studio I felt fresh and recharged. I spent most of the morning working on a sweet painting that I will show you tomorrow. For the evening session I decided to do 2 quick studies of lions on 14 inch wooden panel. One male and one female.

Here is the Lioness in 3 steps, overall time of work less than 1 hour.

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Step one- do quick outlines with pencil and then use a thick brush to avoid being distracted by details. Go for main areas of light and darkness, rest is unimportant
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Step two- bring bit more color and cover the white background
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Step 3- use smaller brush and make bit more details, still focusing on the shades and lights rather than colors and details. That will come when this layer is dry.

Now back to the speed. Why does speed in art matter? Because it makes you learn how to skip the unessential like nothing else. I can't remember the name of the famous artist who counted his brushstrokes. He would constantly lower the number of maximum brushstrokes per painting and when he reached it he would not touch it anymore.

But the greatest examples of amazing masters of art are countless impressionist heroes. Namely Monet, Cezane & Degas...and also our beloved Vincent Van Gogh. There were no digital cameras back then to take a quick snap and finish it later in the studio. And light in the nature changes super fast! You wanna test yourself how skilled artist you are? Go paint outside, you will quickly realize what the hardcore art is about :) These guys were able to pull off even big formats in couple hours. And they sketched constantly to learn to capture THE ESSENCE of the scene in space of minutes. You see, that's what painting is about- it is supposed to capture the essence through the eyes of the artist, not to make a "painted photograph" out of it.

So speed does matter. Because it will teach you the invaluable lesson of separating the inessential and making quick resolute brushstrokes, which makes the painting look vivid and authentic.

Male Lion study coming soon!

I hope you guys enjoyed today's lesson :D

Thanks for reading, upvoting, commenting and resteeming!

Much Love to all!

Jan
Follow @jankasparec