In the last post called Yogurt Holds the Blueberry, I talked about thinking of everything in a composition as an active shape, painting the spaces between things, instead of painting an object floating on nothing.
If we are painting the space between things, we start to see the “background” as an active shape on the page. Instead of an object on a background, it is one shape pushing up against another shape, like two friends sitting shoulder to shoulder. In real life, a house would fall over if it was pressing against still air, but a painting is color on paper. How would you paint still air as it presses into a building, to hold it in place?
In this way, instead of negative space, you can imagine that everything in your painting holds every other thing in place. This doesn’t work automatically, and not all shapes push back equally. They require some attention from the artist to activate each shape and make it work. When activated, a “blank” shape can push into a painted shape, and hold it there. Do you see it?
Take a look at these watercolors by Morandi, and see what you think about the idea we’re calling “yogurt holds the blueberry.”
In my current series of abstraction classes, each week we focus on a single element of art. Honing in like this allows us to explore different ways into a painting or drawing. By narrowing down, we are able to go farther into an idea. These projects were made in response to a class on line …
In preparation for my Tone to Color in Figures class, I’ve been looking at figure drawings with charcoal, ink, even a bit of paint in them. Below are some of Henry Moore’s figure drawings. Henry Moore was an English artist who produced most of his best known work in the early to mid 1900s. As …
The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn created nearly one hundred self portraits during his 63 years of life. Roughly 40 of these self portraits were oil paintings. The rest were drawings and etchings. This was, and is, a fairly unusual number of self portraits for an artist without a smartphone. He might have made self portraits to practice rendering …
Welcome to day 4 of our 30 Day Creative Challenge! This is a composition day in our 30 Day Challenge. Here’s an exercise that improves your compositions, without you even thinking about composition. It worked for Diebenkorn! The primary challenge is to respond to the creative prompts in these posts, and see what happens. The …
Morandi’s Watercolors
In the last post called Yogurt Holds the Blueberry, I talked about thinking of everything in a composition as an active shape, painting the spaces between things, instead of painting an object floating on nothing.
If we are painting the space between things, we start to see the “background” as an active shape on the page. Instead of an object on a background, it is one shape pushing up against another shape, like two friends sitting shoulder to shoulder. In real life, a house would fall over if it was pressing against still air, but a painting is color on paper. How would you paint still air as it presses into a building, to hold it in place?
In this way, instead of negative space, you can imagine that everything in your painting holds every other thing in place. This doesn’t work automatically, and not all shapes push back equally. They require some attention from the artist to activate each shape and make it work. When activated, a “blank” shape can push into a painted shape, and hold it there. Do you see it?
Take a look at these watercolors by Morandi, and see what you think about the idea we’re calling “yogurt holds the blueberry.”
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Abstracting Line
In my current series of abstraction classes, each week we focus on a single element of art. Honing in like this allows us to explore different ways into a painting or drawing. By narrowing down, we are able to go farther into an idea. These projects were made in response to a class on line …
Henry Moore’s Volumetric Figure Drawings
In preparation for my Tone to Color in Figures class, I’ve been looking at figure drawings with charcoal, ink, even a bit of paint in them. Below are some of Henry Moore’s figure drawings. Henry Moore was an English artist who produced most of his best known work in the early to mid 1900s. As …
Rembrandt’s Self Portrait Drawings
The Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn created nearly one hundred self portraits during his 63 years of life. Roughly 40 of these self portraits were oil paintings. The rest were drawings and etchings. This was, and is, a fairly unusual number of self portraits for an artist without a smartphone. He might have made self portraits to practice rendering …
30SAL Challenge: Pathways
Welcome to day 4 of our 30 Day Creative Challenge! This is a composition day in our 30 Day Challenge. Here’s an exercise that improves your compositions, without you even thinking about composition. It worked for Diebenkorn! The primary challenge is to respond to the creative prompts in these posts, and see what happens. The …