Category: Art How-to Tips
Friday, December 15, 2006
Helpful Hints for the Artist #6
Orchestrating color in a landscape
When we start to paint a landscape, nature presents us with an overwhelming variety of colors and shapes. As artists we must have the sensitivity to react to this wonderful display, but one of our main tasks is to select and simplify. Although we must train our eyes to see subtle variations of color, we must also learn to orchestrate these different colors so that they work together to create unity in a paintaing—rather than a confusing competition, with each color trying to attract the viewer’s attention. In other words, we must first organize a painting in such a way that a few large areas of color and value fit together to fill the picture in a way that might be compared to a jigsaw puzzle.
Here are two exercises you can use to develop a good approach to expressing different moods or feelings in pictures:
1. Rule several 4x5 inch boxes. Now write a single-word title under each box describing a mood, such as excited, gloomy, angry,etc. Next fill in each box with three or four colors that will best express the chosen mood. The shapes of these colors can either be abstract or they can roughly suggest natural scenes. They should be free and loose, however, and not detailed.
2. Make several 4x5 inch pencil sketches of pictorial subjects, with or without figures in them. Write a single-word title under each sketch describing the mood you want it to suggest. Now, paint in the colors that will best express that mood.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Helpful Hints for the Artist #5
Advice on using acrylic paints
Acrylic paints (also called polymer or vinyl paints) have become vastly popular, and for good reason. You can mix them with water (or acrylic polymer medium), yet they’re completely waterproof when dry. You can apply them thinly, like watercolor, or you can build them up thickly, like oils, and you can use them in combination with other mediums. They dry quickly and the picture doesn’t have the tendency of oil paintings to crack, chip, or yellow.
Acrylics dry so rapidly that you can paint over a previous layer without disturbing it. You can produce many interesting hues and variations by applying thin transparent washes over your underpainting colors.
Commercially prepared acrylic board is available, but acrylics can be applied to almost any non-oily surface. A butcher’s tray makes a good palette.
You can work with watercolor or oil brushes and painting knives, but brushes need special care, since the medium dries so fast. If you set aside a brush for even a few minutes, suspend it in water. Wash brushes carefully when you finish. You can also obtain special nylon brushes with smooth hairs that resist the binding qualities of the paint and wash easily.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Helpful Hints for the Artist #4
FAS Instructor Hank McLaughlin has this advice on paying attention to values and edges when painting or drawing solid natural forms.
Values
The age-old method to discern the basic lights, middle tones and darks of your model is to squint your eyes. This blurs out the non-essential details and allows you to see the large, overall forms without distraction. The mistaken ideas that we often assume can get in the way. For instance, the “whites” of the eyes and teeth are not pure white…especially in shadow. The lightest of surfaces will grade to almost complete black in shadow, sometimes, if there is little or no illumination. You will observe at times almost a pure white glare on blue water or a green leaf that replaces the local color in these areas. Don’t let what you “know” get in the way of what you actually see!
Edges
Again, squint your eyes…you will see just how soft, soft edges should be painted and how few details, if any, appear in shadow. Edges that appear to go back into the distance usually soften. Edges of heads and hair are further back than the near front of the face. Also the edges of convex shapes like applies, tree trunks and foliage masses when softened make these forms appear more solid. If you keenly observe and faithfully paint these “blurry”, softened edges, the few hard edges you judge necessary will mean something. Remember degree: some edges are slightly blurred and others are greatly softened. Intense observation will tell you the difference. The human eye can only focus on one small area at a time. This shortcoming is a gift to the artist. Allow yourself only a peripheral view of your subject’s surroundings. When observing the head for a portrait, focus only on the face (the center of interest). What you can see of the background, shoulders, clothing, etc., without looking directly at them, is all you want in the portrait. These areas will then support and not compete with the center of interest. The eye is attracted to high contrast and sharp edges and tends to ignore low contrast and soft, blurry edges. When you paint in this manner, your viewer cannot help looking initially at the focal point (center of interest). Then the eye will wander throughout your painting enjoying the “supporting players”. If all of your painting’s forms are hard edges, the effect is flat. Hard, sharp edges come forward and appear to be on the same plane. The eye, being initially attracted to them all, doesn’t find one center of interest and, as a result, loses interest. This applies to all subjects…not just portraits. These principles describe how the human eye receives the visual world. However, since we as painters strive to interpret nature and not necessarily copy it literally, our application of these principles varies with each artist.
Friday, October 14, 2005
Helpful Hints for the Artist #3
Guiding Faculty member Charles Reid has this advice:
Use your artist’s eye
Never look at a subject with wide-open eyes—the more you look, the more you’ll see. Remember, less is more. You must understand your image. Is it dark against light? Is it light against dark? Painting is not as complicated as you might think.If you don’t have a model, set up some objects in front of a window without a strong interior light. Squint very hard and see how objects and shadows merge without apparent boundaries. Still squinting, do you see any object that’s clearly darker or lighter than the thing behind it? All boundaries that are hard to see when squinting should be lost. All boundaries that are apparent when squinting should remain.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Helpful Hints for the Artist—#2
Dong Kingman, a watercolorist who was a member of FAS’ Guiding Faculty for many years, had this advice for artists about the value of on-site sketches combined and enhanced with imagination and whimsy.
I like to begin my paintings on location, then complete the work later in my studio. Most often, I begin this process with an on-site sketch, which gives me necessary design information and helps me firm up my compositional ideas. Once the composition is in place, my imaginary characters take the stage.
Be aware of the surprising ideas coming out of your subconscious mind. Bringing these ideas to the surface takes persistence and hard work. Sometimes they come; sometimes not. The important thinkg is to keep trying. Starting with a design/value sketch assures a satisfying underlying structure for the embellishments that bring each scene to life.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Helpful Hints for the Artist—#1
Today we’re introducing a new feature that will appear here from time to time: Helpful Hints for the Artist. These “tricks of the trade” are drawn from the vast experience of our Artist/Instructors, and are designed to answer questions and resolve stumbling blocks you may encounter as you progress in your art studies. Check back often to read and absorb our latest Hint—and feel free to respond with your own ideas!
Veteran instructor Howell Dodd contributes this hint:
Let me give you a suggestion I find helpful. After I have spent many hours struggling with a painting, I like to set it aside for several days, facing the wall. Then, after giving it—and myself—a rest, I turn it around and look at it with a fresh eye. In many cases it looks better than I had remembered it! But I usually can see the need for adjustments—some minor or very subtle—that will enhance the picture. The need for these adjustments can sometimes be quite obvious. Other times it is necessary to look at the picture for a long time before determining what changes to make. It’s as if you must patiently wait for the picture to tell you what it needs!
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Dolph LeMoult on Inspiration
FAS Instructor Dolph LeMoult offers good advice on the role of inspiration in creative work:
I’ve found that many of my students complain they are not inspired, and so use that as an excuse for not painting and drawing regularly. To me, this is a bit like the habitual smoker who decides to wait until he no longer feels like a cigarette before he will quit. Neither works; the smoker will always want to smoke, and the artist who waits for divine inspiration will not paint.
I’ve been fortunate to see this both as an artist and as a novelist, and I’ve found that there’s not much difference between the two. I’m hard pressed to remember a time in either discipline when I was struck with inspiration. The key word there, I think, is discipline. In both art and writing, my experience has shown that it’s probably one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. Does that mean that art has become a chore for me? Far from it. I’ve been in the art field all of my life, as a designer, illustrator, and gallery painter, and the thought of not working as an artist would be unbearable. But I’ve had to put it in perspective.
Interesting word, perspective; just as its dictionary definition is, the effect of distance on the appearance of objects, understanding the creative process in art has taken the effect of time on my most cherished notions, and made me keenly aware of the facts:
First: Not everything I paint or draw will be good: There will be days (sometimes many in a row) when nothing works. It will seem that, no matter how hard I try, things just seem to get worse – and it seems as if that slump will never end. Not true: In over forty years of experiencing those dreadful times, I have always pulled out of them, most of the time for no good reason.
Second: If I stand at the drawing board or easel expecting to miraculously come up with an inspired idea I’ll be sorely disappointed. My most successful work has been the result of trial and error, of frustration and persistence, and, more often than not, the happy accidents that seem to occur to all of us when we put pencil, pen and brush to a surface.
So my advice to anyone who feels inadequate because he or she is not miraculously inspired is, stick to it. Work when everything you do seems awful; when you’re convinced that you haven’t got what it takes to be an artist. Believe me, you’ll work your way through it and one of those happy accidents will happen to you, and you’ll look at it in disbelief and wonder. And you’ll be an artist, and take it from me, there’s no better thing to be in the whole wide world.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Instructor Hank McLaughlin on sketching
Hank McLaughlin‘s Tips on Sketching
1. Why is it important to develop the habit of sketching?John Singer Sargent once said, “Sketch your hand once a day and you will become an artist.” Use your non-drawing hand as a model – fingers spread out, making a fist, etc. This improves your hand-eye coordination. Nearly anything we observe in nature will make a model for a sketch…a tree, rock, apple, etc. It is not what you sketch, draw or paint, but how well it is sketched, drawn or painted. Developing a habit to sketch spontaneously and often will improve all other aspects of your art. Your finished drawings will improve and so will your paintings. It has been said that Rembrandt sketched and drew as he breathed.
2. What are the different uses of sketches?
A sketch may be of a detail that can be added to a painting…such as an animal or human figure. A sketch can be a wonderful way to design a painting’s patterns in a simple way, with or without color, before actually painting. Sketching is also a great way to study the natural world’s beauty whether or not it ever leads to a painting. Begin sketching simple subjects at first: an apple on a table, a leaf, rock, etc. Beginners often attempt to sketch too complex subjects at first and as a result lose interest in the valuable and exciting practice of sketching.
3. What are the best materials to use?
Soft 2B-6B pencils and a sketch pad are the basics, but pastels, oil pastels, watercolor, felt tipped pens, colored pencils and even acrylic and oil paints can be used for sketching in color. Color sketches are not necessary, but worth a try. The sketching itself, regardless of medium, is most necessary.
4. How often should I sketch?
Once you begin and see its value over time, you will want to sketch every day.
5. What size sketchbook should I use?
It’s a matter of personal choice. Many artists carry a sketchbook that will fit into a pocket for quick sketches of people or any subject that attracts you while traveling. Some use a large pad, 20”x 24” or larger, on an easel or propped against a chair for sketching in a life class on cheap newsprint paper. They use something soft like vine charcoal to make many quick sketches to study the human form in various positions. Use sketchpads or sketchbooks of any size in between to fit the situation.
