UNDERESTIMATING THE TRANSLATION. When I look at a painting made by observation I can’t help but assume that the artist painted what they saw in front of them, more or less. If their marks are colorful angled palette knife shapes as they are in Tina Kraft’s plein air painting above, I assume they pulled the shapes directly from the scene, made a few minor alterations, and popped up the color they saw. Sometimes I get so up in my head I forget that many artists do not aspire to copy, and a semi-abstracted translation is not just a copy with big painty brush strokes. A good painting is a combination of input (what the painter sees and experiences) combined with some sort of guidelines with which to inform their choices.
BUILDING A COMPOSITION. Painters who build strong compositions often implement tools and guidelines to help aid their decisions. Below are some examples from The Secret Geometry of Paintings by Charles Bouleau. You might recognize a few of these artworks, and you might be surprised by how mathematical some of them are.
George Bellows, The Private Club. From The Secret Geometry of Paintings by Charles Bouleau
There’s a logarithmic curve in George Bellows’, The Private Club. A logarithmic curve. What???
Nicholas Poussin, Harpsichord Player. From The Secret Geometry of Paintings by Charles BouleauNicholas Poussin, Massacre of the Innocents. From The Secret Geometry of Paintings by Charles Bouleau
HOW DO YOU BUILD A COMPOSITION? Do you copy what is there? Do you change it? How do you change it?
Here is an example of secret geometry applied to a plein air painting by Tina Kraft:
TINA KRAFT’S SECRET GEOMETRY. Take a look at this plein air landscape by Tina Kraft. She has applied geometry to guide the composition, and move us through the scene. I’ve drawn in grey what she told me she sketched in pencil when the painting began. Most of the initial pencil is gone, but you can still see a few pieces of her lines next to mine. Even though the paint application is relaxed, can you see how the geometry guided her translation of this scene into a beautifully structured artwork? Under those painterly palette knife marks there is order, rhythm, harmony, and direction within the painting.
Once I started looking for all the angles that followed the lines, her structure came into view. I kept finding more and more referrals to her grid.
The pink marks follow the grid exactly.The pink marks follow the grid exactly. The orange marks run parallel to the grid, echoing the angles and placements. What seemed at first like a random collection of marks aligns into an orderly solution. The grid isn’t the only secret geometry in this painting. Look at the spokes that radiate from the little red rectangle. A surprise at the edge of the canvas, it’s the only shape in that color, and it contrasts brightly against the green and blue. It’s small, but important. Do you see how Kraft has drawn us there by using radiating spokes? The arrows I drew obfuscate the paint edges, so below is that painting again, without any marks. Can you see the geometry?
YOUR TURN. Now try it with this painting. Can you find the secret geometry?
I’m not really sure how I landed on these, but here they are: “Indian Composite Animal Paintings” from about 1750-1850. I don’t know much about them other than that they’re Hindu. I read that they’re about inter-relatedness of all beings. I’m not sure about the spiritual message, but it looks like people had fun making them. Occasionally I …
All of us leave a legacy. It’s the result of what we say, what we do, the art we make. We leave our fingerprints on this world, and there’s a bit of soul left in them. Today I’d like to share the work of one of our students, and delve a bit not just into …
March 10-12, 2017: We put on our First Ever Seattle Artist League Show, featuring a huge variety of over 100 drawings and paintings by more than 50 League artists. With huge thanks to everyone involved, the show was an enormous success; a showcase of creative achievements. We are pleased and proud to see how things are …
My last V. Note proclaimed itself “the first of four posts highlighting black artists with professional careers in both painting and printmaking.” I had done an internet search for black artists, and found a Wiki page with a fantastic list of artists I could research. To narrow down the list, I looked for all the artists …
Tina Kraft: Secret Geometry in Painting
UNDERESTIMATING THE TRANSLATION. When I look at a painting made by observation I can’t help but assume that the artist painted what they saw in front of them, more or less. If their marks are colorful angled palette knife shapes as they are in Tina Kraft’s plein air painting above, I assume they pulled the shapes directly from the scene, made a few minor alterations, and popped up the color they saw. Sometimes I get so up in my head I forget that many artists do not aspire to copy, and a semi-abstracted translation is not just a copy with big painty brush strokes. A good painting is a combination of input (what the painter sees and experiences) combined with some sort of guidelines with which to inform their choices.
BUILDING A COMPOSITION. Painters who build strong compositions often implement tools and guidelines to help aid their decisions. Below are some examples from The Secret Geometry of Paintings by Charles Bouleau. You might recognize a few of these artworks, and you might be surprised by how mathematical some of them are.
There’s a logarithmic curve in George Bellows’, The Private Club. A logarithmic curve. What???
HOW DO YOU BUILD A COMPOSITION? Do you copy what is there? Do you change it? How do you change it?
Here is an example of secret geometry applied to a plein air painting by Tina Kraft:
TINA KRAFT’S SECRET GEOMETRY. Take a look at this plein air landscape by Tina Kraft. She has applied geometry to guide the composition, and move us through the scene. I’ve drawn in grey what she told me she sketched in pencil when the painting began. Most of the initial pencil is gone, but you can still see a few pieces of her lines next to mine. Even though the paint application is relaxed, can you see how the geometry guided her translation of this scene into a beautifully structured artwork? Under those painterly palette knife marks there is order, rhythm, harmony, and direction within the painting.
Once I started looking for all the angles that followed the lines, her structure came into view. I kept finding more and more referrals to her grid.
The arrows I drew obfuscate the paint edges, so below is that painting again, without any marks. Can you see the geometry?
YOUR TURN. Now try it with this painting. Can you find the secret geometry?
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Indian Composite Animal Paintings
I’m not really sure how I landed on these, but here they are: “Indian Composite Animal Paintings” from about 1750-1850. I don’t know much about them other than that they’re Hindu. I read that they’re about inter-relatedness of all beings. I’m not sure about the spiritual message, but it looks like people had fun making them. Occasionally I …
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All of us leave a legacy. It’s the result of what we say, what we do, the art we make. We leave our fingerprints on this world, and there’s a bit of soul left in them. Today I’d like to share the work of one of our students, and delve a bit not just into …
The First Ever Seattle Artist League Show
March 10-12, 2017: We put on our First Ever Seattle Artist League Show, featuring a huge variety of over 100 drawings and paintings by more than 50 League artists. With huge thanks to everyone involved, the show was an enormous success; a showcase of creative achievements. We are pleased and proud to see how things are …
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My last V. Note proclaimed itself “the first of four posts highlighting black artists with professional careers in both painting and printmaking.” I had done an internet search for black artists, and found a Wiki page with a fantastic list of artists I could research. To narrow down the list, I looked for all the artists …