A Plein Air Painter's Blog - Michael Chesley Johnson: Post-Postcard Poll

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Post-Postcard Poll - and Paintings Heading for Pennsylvania

I had good response yesterday to the poll regarding which postcard color scheme to use. I always think doing graphic design by committee is a bad idea, but in this case, it was helpful. A couple of you suggested I do a full bleed of the image, but the boat takes up such a large part of the real estate that a full bleed would crop it, and I did want the whole boat. Another suggested using black for the border, but I've found black to be too strong an element in these designs, having used it in the past. Other colors could also be used - one reader suggested pulling a grey from the distant shore - and that looked nice, but I wanted a stronger color. At any rate, the majority (over 60%) liked the sand-colored border, and that's what I'm going with.

On another matter, one reader e-mailed me to say she thought the boat looked somewhat squished. "But that's the way it was," is something I always discourage my students from saying when trying to justify an odd-looking element in a painting. Why? Because that element will distract the viewer from the intent of the painting, which in my world is to please the viewer, not to puzzle him. But that is the way it was. The boat has a characteristically deep hold for scallops or herring, whichever it had been rigged for in its day. It spent days at sea, filling its belly.

On another note, I wanted to show the paintings that I have shipped off to my new gallery, The Green Drake Gallery and Arts Center in Millheim, Pennsylvania. By the way, I'll also be teaching a workshop there in October 2012.