Brush Strokes in Fine Art

As artists become more proficient they find there is a lot of interest created by their brush strokes. Acrylic and oil based media are commonly used where brush strokes are intentionally left alone, not smoothed over, “unmolested” as Frank Webb puts it.

One place to see good brush strokes is in the art work of Jason Emry, an oil painter, currently showing at the Manifest Art Gallery in Niwot, CO.

And one can see artwork there which does not depend on brush strokes in any way whatsoever.  Those are the images created by “sticker-artist”, Barry Snyder. Snyder’s work is composed entirely of PLU labels peeled from grocery store produce and sent to him by his many admirers.

A classic piece of abstract artist Diane Goldenstein show a bold use of brush strokes to develop her images:

Dianes Brush Strokes

So watch what you are doing and especially look for those artistic, right brained brush strokes which usually tell a story of their own and add tremendous interest to your paintings.

Arty

Exploring Colored Pencil

I have become more drawn toward abstract paintings and in doing so have found myself experimenting with colored pencil. These are wax based pigments in many varied colors.

This wax base makes it possible to layer color upon color to create interesting and unusual variations of neutralized colors in addition to pure colors.

Here is one sample….

colored pencil abstract on black card stock

I may be adding more examples soon.

Click on the image to see a larger scale version of this painitng which is in reality 12″ x 14″.

Arty

 

See Skip Lawrence’s Blog !

A few years ago I attended the Intensive Studies Seminar in Taos, NM sponsored by five truly famous contemporary artists.  It was 9 days of uninterrupted creativity by 100 artists in one big ballroom – a memorable experience.

One of the five “real artists” was William “Skip” Lawrence who was as entertaining as he was talented in creating beautiful abstract contemporary watercolor art.

Now he has his own blog and it is a beauty. I recommend it highly for all my friends and students. Take a look at Skip’s Blog – look and learn…

Arty

From Chaos…Peace!

Never throw away a painting…!

That has been a concept of mine for many years. Of course, sometimes you just have to, but…

… many times you will find little gems in those old paintings you thought were disasters.

A few years ago I experimented with producing background textures in acrylic paint for possible collage paintings. Nothing seemed to come of that so the sheets of “test” paintings were set aside.

Years later I looked at the sheets again and went over them with a 6″ square matt looking for interesting pieces. I found some areas that looked promising and cut them out  producing a small stack of acrylic paintings on 140# CP watercolor paper. I  found that some areas had thick layers of paint and others had several thin layers which had been scraped through a few times with the end of  brush handles while the paint was still wet.

This year I looked at the collection of little paintings once more. Some were trimmed to fit a 4 x 6 area on blank Strathmore Photo Mount greeeting cards.

Using liquid gold acrylic “ink” I dabbed on  some spots and strokes to depict crude Christmas trees.

Here are two examples:

I love the way the gold shimmers against the darker background – but it does not show up that way here.

Now there is something that no one has seen before!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Arty

PS – 2011 Art Class at Old Fire House Art Center in Longmont

Commissioned Painting

Recently a good friend requested a painting which would be a memento for her when she retires and goes to the Virgin Islands to live.  She wanted to be reminded of the years she spent in her Colorado home …

And …

She wanted to have content in the picture which would speak to her about the Virgin Islands.

And …

She is a devotee of feng shui  (I had to do some research …)

And … here it is!

A telescopic view of Longs Peak and Mt. Meeker…
… her current home in Longmont.
Red, pink and purple flowers.
Lawn chairs.
Umbrellas.
Two eagles.
Two boats.
Two waves….!

There is a message here for all you people who want to do commissioned work:  be prepared to edit your own artistic beliefs.  And charge your client appropriately for your efforts.

Keep Painting!

Arty

Working With Values Made Easy

When you start your next painting start first with a sketch of your painting in your sketch book and make it include the major three values you are planing to use.

Why do I say this?  I have found my students have difficulty understanding the importance of creating a definite set of light, middle and dark values when creating a painting that will be interesting.  So to help them easily get on the right track right away here is my nifty procedure:

First, make your preliminary sketch with a 2-B or slightly softer pencil.  You will locate the important objects in the picture rectangle in some interesting arrangement.  When you have done that, stop drawing and pick up a sheet of Kleenex, wad it up, and use it to smear the graphite from the pencil drawing all over the surface of the painting!  Don’t worry – you will not erase everything.  You will only turn the surface a very light grey.

Look at my first drawing of a simple subject – a pear shape propped on the “L” of a book-end:

After adding some lines in the upper left corner I smeared the graphite to produce this:

Now I can intensify the darks and lighten the lights by lifting some of the graphite with a kneaded eraser.  Finally the sketch looks like this:

 I have lights, darks, middle values and high-lights.

By doing it this way I am focused on the value pattern I am creating.  Now all I have to do is add colors of the appropriate values.

Try it, if you have not had any experience previously.  It will make such a difference in the quality of your art work.

Arty 7-26-10

Color Selection for Painters

Making a decision about which colors to select when designing your painting is certain to be perplexing for most of us – especially when starting out in our art careers.

One can go to this site  http://www.color-wheel-pro.com/color-schemes.html   to discover what is usually taught in art schools about color scheme selection.  Most artists learn early-on the concepts of analagous color, complimentary color, triads, tetrads, and split complimentary color.  I did not find those concepts particularly helpful when trying to choose colors for my paintings. So I offer here my method which may be helpful to you.

First, we ususally want to select three colors which will help to convey the message we wish to create in our painting.  (“Message” as in “Mood” or “Spirit.”)  Take a nice summer day, for example.  We want a warm feeling in our painting.  I love the blue skies often seen on such days.

Why only three colors, you ask?  It is so easy to overdo it if you are not thinking about it.  Three colors is quite enough when you know that you can darken, lighten, warm up or cool down almost any color.  Yellow is an exception.  You can warm a yellow by adding a touch of orange, but cooling a yellow can only be done by adding some white (which reduces its intensity) or adding a very tiny amount of green or a tiny amount of cyan (blue).

More importantly, I try never to have equal amounts of the three colors.  To avoid this I allow one color to be the dominant color and the second color to be the “supporting actor”. The third color is used to create some harmonious contrast.

So we decide on a split compliment of cyan, yellow-orange and red-orange by refering to a color wheel…

Cyan with Split Complimentary Colors

Yes, we like the colors but what will the painting look like?

So, we paint some test spots of cyan, yellow-orange and red-orange…

Split Complement Color Patches

Ummm – ok, but what will my painting look like?  What I see here is three colors in the same amounts plus I touched the bottom of the cyan patch with some red orange to see what that would look like.

So refering to my value sketches …

We notice that we are dealing with roughly rectanglular shapes…

So we decide to make a color sketch using rectangular shapes of different sizes….

Color Sketch

We find that it is interesting to try different patterns of rectangular shapes and vary the placement of our colors.  But it doesn’t look like my value sketch !
 
So we sketch a very simple modification of our picutre plan keeping in mind that the value pattern is the most important thing – and I want my sketch to look more like the landscape I am trying to depict – good idea!
 
So I make a color sketch which will give me a better idea of what my finished painting might look like …

"Sunset" sketch on wet paper

I call these “sunset sketches” and you can see why. 

Now that is more helpful to see what my colors would do in a landscape painting. 

Wet-in-wet W/C Painting

I can try another version using the same split complement…

From here I can evaluate whether I have the feeling of a warm sunny day.  I can modify the picture more once it is totally dry.  This attempt was done on totally wet paper. When it is dry I may decide to develop some hard edges and more detail to create more interest.  I must keep in mind that it is very easy to over-do it!

At least I have made a good start and from here I can attempt other versions of this painting using different value patterns or even different color choices.

It is critical to realize that I will vary the intensity of the three colors. I will grade the values of the colors frequently from dark to light to create more interest. And, finally, I will keep in mind that I want to keep the portions of the colors in three different quantities.  In the last sketch I think the cyan and the yellow-orange are too much the same in size.

Same-ness will detract from the interest I am trying to create in the painting.

So try this out for yourself.  See if painting a little color sketch of a sunset on wet paper will help you decide what to do with the colors you have selected.

Arty 12-23-09  Merry Christmas!

Managing Color To Create Better Art

Managing your colors as a watercolor artist is similar in many ways to managing your color in other painting mediums.

In watercolor we use the white of the paper in place of a white pigment (such as titanium white) to lighten the value of our color.  It is simply a matter of adding more water to the mixture in the brush to produce a color which is lighter in value.

While watercolor is characterized by its transparency we can lighten color by increasing the water-to-pigment ratio on the pallete mixing area before we load the pigment onto our brush.

An illustration with red-orange follows:

The center square is mid-value red-orange straight from the tube diluted with a small amount of water.  The two squares to the left of center have had small amounts of the complimentary color, blue-green, added to them in order to darken the color.  And in the right two squares the red-orange from  the tube has been diluted with slightly more water.  This allows more light to penetrate the color patch and bounce  off the underlying white paper and return to our eyes.

You will notice that the intensity of the red-orange color is diminished by diluting it with water.

Anytime we add something to the pure pigment manufactured by the paint company we get a reduction in pigment intensity and a change in the value of the pigment.  (When we say “value” we mean the degree of lightness).

The darker squares of orange pigment are darker in value  because we have added complimentary color (blue or blue-green) to the pure red-orange on our mixing area before applying the color to the paper.  We see we have lost color intensity, lowered the value of the color and cut down on the transparency of the color.

It takes a lot of words to explain what is easily seen when you actually test this out in your own studio.

The second set of red-orange squares was created by first using pure red-orange to paint the middle square.  Red-orange pigment “out of the tube” is at maximum intensity. On the right we added Chinese-white to make the color lighter in value. And again we see that the intensity of the color is decreased and the transparency of the orange is cut almost to zero.  That is because Chinese white is opaque, like chalk.

Then we added cyan (blue) to the squares on the left of center.  We see a marked reduction in intensity of the orange and some loss of transparency. Plus there is a darkening of the value of the color.  When you try this yourself you will be able to see more clearly the blue-green which causes the darkening of the red-orange.

These concepts are important when we want to create a sceen in our painting, especially if we want a sense of distance.

Distant objects are lighter in value, low in color intensity and generally cooler because of the effect of atmosphere interposed between the viewer and the object being viewed.

I do not ususally add chinese white to my paint.  I would rather mask out spots in the darker areas if I wish to have a splash of intense color – such as sunlit flowers in front of a dark shadowed background.

Be sure to experiment with these ideas before trying to employ them in your final painting.  In fact do a few quick color sketches to test out your color management.  All successful artists paint many value sketches as well as color sketches before embarking on their final masterpiece.

Arty 12-10-09

Allow One Element to Dominate

When I did the following still life painting I used  three of the seven basic elements of design and compostion: Value, Hue, and Texture.

Value is obvious in the three major divisions of a very light, a mid-value and darks.

Hue selection was based on the secondary triad: violet,orange and green. I wish I had created a variety of violet in the area which is now a very rich intense blue.

Texture was upper-most in my thinking. I really wanted textures to dominate over other elements. I got several textures but I don’t think they are enough to be a dominant element.

Focus in on three areas of texture:

The first is an area in which a piece of plastic wrap was laid on top of a wash of damp color and allowed to dry for about thirty minutes before removing the plastic wrap.

The second is an area built up of many layers of spattered dark paint. Several different hues were used.

The third is an area which was spattered with clear water in very fine droplets. I used an old tooth brush rubbed across the edge of a piece of window screen.

I could have made texture more dominant and allowed value to become secondary if I had used paint diluted with slightly more water, thus reducing the value contrast.

As it turned out I think “Value” is most dominant with “Hue” secondary and “Texture” the least dominant.

Visit Create Great Art for more ideas about texture.

When creating your own art keep things rather simple.  No need to try to incorporate all seven elements in one piece of work. Three of the seven elements are enough.

I call it “the Rule of 3s” because it comes up so often in designing  art.

But more about that later.

Arty 11-20-09

“After Sunset”

Autumn weather is settling in here in Colorado along the northern Front Range. The abundant leaves are beautiful and starting to litter the ground.  Evenings can be very interesting with all sorts of colors.

The other day I was struck by the odd yellow-greenish color of a nearly cloudless sky just after sunset.  I decided to try for that color with an acrylic painting.

I used my artistic license to add a new moon and the cloud was added with a double loaded brush stroke, dark purple on one side and orange on the other.

Acrylic, if I had to choose only one medium, would be my choice because it is so versatile in what it allows you to do.  I suggest viewing the William Hook paintings in “Acrylic Painting Techniques” by Earl and Leah Killeen.

Also don’t forget to check out my tips and suggestions at http://Create-Great-Art.com

Happy painting,

Arty