How One Painting Is Composed

Frequently folks want to take issue with how much composing a painter does.  But the seasoned painter knows that to get it right, it must be rightly composed.  It's not that difficult:  it's just a matter of practicing one principle at a time until it becomes a natural part of your working process.

One beautifully composed painting I discovered recently is "The Dancer," a watercolor painting by Carla O'Conner.  Today's post is about how she made this happen.

What do we see working here?

"The Dancer"  30" x 22"   Watercolor

The first thing I see is an underlying structure of triangles, one of the most powerful organizing methods available to the artist.

 Notice how the image is anchored to the painting's edges at each point a central triangle, enabling the negative shapes--those shapes outside the image-- to form their own triangles.  And look how each of these is a different size and configuration:  that's using the principle of variation.  

Next,  look at  the painting's notan.  All the darks are connected  forming a visual path guiding the eye from one area to another giving  unity to the entire piece. In quantity though, there is more light space than dark, the principle of dominance at work here.   

Back to the painting.

Notice the strong vertical alignment of shapes, the strong vertical edge of the head,  the head looking downward,  the stretch of the arm aligned with the vertical edge of the painting and the vertical format itself, all giving balance to the entire piece.

And finally, study how O'Connor uses the contrast principle by juxtaposing strong darks within a field of strong lights and how she achieves the color harmony principle using both low intensity and analogous colors.

And we don't have to know all this to enjoy this painting.

Getting To the Point

An adroit artist can focus our attention without our being aware of what's happening. One easy method to make this happen is a visual device called  one-point perspective, an approach artists have been using for centuries.

Photographer unknown
Notice in this photo how all lines converge to  a single point.  That's how one-point perspective works.

Take a look at how artist Joe Paquet uses this device.

"Classic Saint Paul"      8" x 12"     Oil on Canvas

Pretty elementary, right.  One-point perspective works when the artist arranges major shapes or points of emphasis so that our eyes are guided toward a single area called a vanishing point.   It's a natural consequence of how the eye sees parallel lines in real life.  It comes with our natural ability to see depth as when we're looking down a hallway.

Photo by MarvinOS

Just like they do with all of nature's organizing systems, artists find intriguing ways to employ one-point perspective.  Look at how Paquet found it and made it work here.

"Santa Rosa Creek Road"     12' x 16"   Oil on Canvas

 He's a  bit more subtle in this next piece.

Eagles' Nest Stage Stop    8" x 10"   Oil on Canvas

And he does a similar thing here.

"Queen Anne's Lace"       8" x 10"    Oil on Canvas

One-point perspective is not so much a composition principle as a structural device that can guarantee an artist both an eye path and correct visual perspective.  Sometimes a scene will contain exactly what you need; at other times the artist will make a few adjustments to enable the images to fall within the structural intention.

Probably one of the most ingenious one-point perspective painting ever was done more than 600 years ago:   Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper."

Have a fun weekend.
Dianne

Take This Path

A path for a painter is like a melody line or chord progression for a composer.  It's our way of getting the viewers' attention then guiding their eyes to the areas where we want them to travel.   We use a variety of methods to achieve this.  Look at this painting by Jennifer McChristain.  Where do your eyes first go?

Jennifer McChristian         "Rue Saint-Antoine"
Oil on Canvas 

The first thing I see is two people walking toward us.  After that I notice the other two people,  cars, and then the overall scene. Then, as an afterthought, my eye goes to the red sign in the upper left of the painting then to the rear of a truck exiting the scene.  The sign and truck bring my eyes back to the figures.  That's the path.

Experiencing this work is like feeling a chord progression pulling us from one area to another before we come back to the major key.  To keep the chord moving, the artist uses temperature contrast (the warm colors used in the building, figures and truck within the cooler colors of the buildings, street and sky), isolation (the dark figures within a light space), and one-point perspective (angles of the street and buildings vanishing to a single point).

That's better than a bagel with butter and jam.

Note:  After a long hiatus, I hope I'm back to doing regular weekend posts on this blog.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Alzheimer's Has Not Taken Her Art

One of my students of many years is now 92 years old and has Alzheimer's, yet even though she had not touched a brush in several years, when her granddaughter set her up for painting, not only did she paint as if she was picking up from yesterday, she spouted out the art lingo as if she'd been painting every day.

So this week's post is in honor of Mignon Bruce, artist and lover of the arts.  Here she is with her son holding her newest painting.

Mignon is one of those rare human beings who in addition to being an artist herself devoted her long life and an indeterminate amount of energy enabling an awareness and appreciation of the arts in an artless community.    Her determination and support for artists in our area has been as tenacious as it has been fruitful.  Whereas forty years ago interest in the arts was sparse, today this same community sports an abundance of artists, a community theater, an active and growing art department at our local college and several art galleries.  In every single one of these areas I can find Mignon's footprint.

And today even though Alzheimer's has stolen from her far too much, she is proving what I've always known, that art is an extension of the soul and does not perish.

Understanding Intensity in Color

Color contains three attributes:  hue, its location in the spectrum;  value, how much light or dark it holds, and intensity (also called chroma) or the saturation of hue within the color.

Look at this graphic.  The colors are full saturated even though one hue merges into another.   

 Fully saturated means the hue is not neutralized by a complement.  The hues closest to the center are darker in value, but they remain as saturated as their lighter versions close at the edge.  All these hues are at their highest intensity.

Here's the same example with some of the saturation taken away or neutralized, each having a bit of its complement mixed into it.

The hues remain the same, but the intensity is slightly lowered, a bit more neutralized.

And here it is again with all the hues totally neutralized.  Notice that with the hues totally neutralized they disappear and the intensity is gone, but the values remain.  

So, why is this important to a painter?

Being aware of the complexities of color and knowing how to manipulate them opens up for the painter an abundance of options so that the ability to see nuances increases both in observing and in making decisions.

An Argument for Principles of Composition

BOUNDARIES
We live in an era of artists rebelling against boundaries.  It's nothing new-- questioning boundaries is a driving force that keeps humans evolving.  But too often a principle gets mislabeled as a boundary and consequently gets abandoned, to the detriment of the artist.

ASIDE
There are artists among us who consider composition principles boundaries.  These folks complain that if they spend their energy concentrating on the principles while painting, they'd give up.  And some argue that principles serve only to inhibit the creative process.  They complain that they're not interested in making great works of art, just finding some joy in life.  They just want to paint and not be bothered with having to think about it.

BOUNDARIES VS PRINCIPLES
A boundary is a wall or a line of demarcation.  It's intention is to define two sides of a place or thing or to limit access.  It's purpose is to divide.

A principle is a fundamental of how something works.  Its function is to hold something together, not to limit or divide.

CONCLUSION
To reject learning and using principles of composition is to limit the scope of ones creative potential.  The boundary is not the principle itself, rather the projection we place on it when we make assumptions about it rather than to take the effort to explore its possibilities.

When NOT To Compose

Earlier this spring, I visited a sheep farm to watch the annual sheering.  I had expected to see the sheering process, but had not anticipated that everywhere I looked there would be subject matter. It was close to overwhelming.

I saw potential paintings in every direction, hundreds of them.  At first I was a bit stunned by the overload of images. 

 ...a newly sheered sheep on the way back to pasture...

...freshly sheered sheep grazing... 

...a young girl riding her bike... 

.

...lamas in the back pasture guarding the sheep...

 ... unsheered sheep in the holding areas...

...sheep being shifted in place for a sheering...

...and the sheering, itself.

And it all was in motion.  Positioning the camera and taking pictures as fast as I could, I was still missing stuff in between shots. There was no time to think. And certainly no time to compose.  It was simply gathering raw images while trying to stay aware of all the surrounding sensations--the smells, the sounds, the atmosphere.

This is another side of being a painter. It's a time NOT to compose, just to tune into whatever images get your adrenaline going and gather as many as you can.  It's the flip side of having your subject in the studio with plenty of time to study it or of setting up to paint on location where the light moving is the only thing that makes you hustle.

What is done with the images gathered may or may not be significant.  They could get filed into the archives of my computer or they could become the subject of a spate of work.  That doesn't matter.  What matters is that I not miss an opportunity to record something that spoke to me, even if I didn't understand at the moment what it was saying.

The 20th Century Argument

This post is more editorial than tutorial.  Important nonetheless.

In a recent issue of Southwest Art, Richard Schmid was asked, "What are some of the biggest changes you've seen in your career?"  His answer:  "I've seen a widespread turn away from what we call modern art, and a strong turn toward highly skilled and serious content in American painting."

Left:   Pablo Picasso  "Seated Woman with Wrist Watch,"  1932
Right:   Richard Schmid, "Portrait,"  1990's

Schmid's answer got my attention because, being close to his age, that probably would have been my answer as well.  Those of us who were university art students in the sixties know quite well the influence of 20th century dogma on our various directions as artists.  For decades, the mainstream required that we absorb its attitudes if we were to be successful.

What I admire about Schmid is that he was able to transition through those attitudes, taking from them teachings that could strengthen his painting while staying firm to his own identity as artist.  What does that mean?

20th century dogma considered developing drawing and painting skills archaic.  Ideas and expressiveness, uniqueness and invention and manipulating space were paramount.  Visual thinking ruled over skills.  Another way to say it is that the pendulum of visual art swung all the way to one side where either total distortion or extreme order over-rode craftsmanship.

Heroes of the day were artists like de Kooning, Rauschenburg and Mondrian.

Willem de Kooning    Robert Rauschenberg   Piet Mondrian

But pendulums often swing in the opposite direction when a thing wears itself out, when those involved began to demand something different from what they are being given, when preachings of the day become hollow and empty.  And so gradually, artists with university degrees began to enroll in workshops and apprentice themselves in order to develop the skills their colleges did not give them.

Workshops and tiny art schools mushroomed, founded by instructors who had managed to locate and study with rogue artists who had chosen to develop their skills outside of the university setting.  The universities and mainstream were the last to catch on and still today old attitudes prevail, but in spite of that, once again the painters and sculptors of our era are finding out that to be highly skilled is to enable creativity, not the other way around as preached by our 20th century heritage.

One Idea, Many Variations

How many variations can you put on a theme?

Turkish pianist Fazil Say shows us how Mozart, being both playful and naughty, took "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and did this:

 
Similarly, visual artist Pat Weaver has put more than two dozen twists on a single theme, a container of flowers.  Go HERE for a moment and take a look.  (Don't forget to come back.)

Just as composers like Mozart often elaborate on a simple tune, it's not unusual for a visual artist to explore a single idea in an array of works, each complete within itself, yet having its own unique take on the chosen theme.  One way to do this is to play with the color key like Pat Weaver has done.

Look at two of Pat's still life paintings:

Still life paintings by artist Pat Weaver

You can see that one of these painting's key registers on the warm side of the Color Wheel while the other falls in on the cool side.

But look what happens in this one:

Pat has used two keys in her pot of geraniums and with a sweet twist:  most of her green notes (green being on the cool side) are predominately a warm green whereas her red (red being warm) notes are on the cooler side of red.  

If you listen to all the spins Mozart put on "Twinkle, Twinkle..." you can hear how each dances around the tune, yet retains our recognition of it.  Pat Weaver's many variations on "flowers in a container" each carries a specific use of color giving it a singular interpretation and expression.

Each of these creators took a given and found multiple ways to expand it into something new and unique.

It's Set in the Key

This is my vacation piece.  I'll be on medical sabbatical for a little while getting my right hand--my dominant one--repaired and recuperated.

Meanwhile, this is fun:

2700 years ago a Greek philosopher named Pythagoras standardized musical tuning into a system he called the Circle of Fifths.   It was he who diagrammed the relationship of our twelve major keys, an invaluable tool for composers and musicians in Western music.

 Within Pythagoras' Circle of Fifths, we can locate any key and find its related chords.  Here's how it looks:

The Circle of Fifths designed by Pythagoras in the 6th century, BC

(Disclaimer:  This particular design of Pythagoras diagram is posted on several internet sites.  It is unclear to whom it should be credited.)

To see how this works, locate C on the circle.  Glance to the left of C and you'll see F, look to the right to find G.  C, F and G are the three major chords in the key of C.  In the little circle underneath them are the minor chords related to the key of C.

Now here's the fun part: four hundred years ago the traditional Color Wheel was diagrammed  by Sir Isaac Newton.  This wheel also is a twelve-part unit.

The traditional Color Wheel as designed by Sir Isaac Newton in the 1600's.

No different from the Circle of Fifth's importance to musicians, the Color Wheel is the work horse of visual artists.  The more a musician learns about the Circle of Fifths, the richer the music can be, and the more a visual artist learns about the Color Wheel, the more fertile the possibilities are in painting and design.

And not unlike how a composer sets a musical piece in a key, the artist has the ability to set the key of a painting, giving it the same sort of unity as a key gives a piece of music.

Left   "Weaver" by Richard Schmid
   Right   In a Moscow Cafe"  by Robert Genn

The paintings above are similar in that each features a person engaged in doing something, but their major difference is their key.   Robert Genn's has keyed his piece in cool colors (colors in the bluish range) whereas Richard Schmid's painting is keyed in warm colors (colors in the yellow/red range).

Here is how each is positioned on Newton's Color Wheel:

Schmid and Genn paintings each placed in their key of colors. 

What's so much fun about all this is the similarity between the two diagrams we artists and musicians depend upon and the many parallels in the ways they are used.

And once my hands are working again, I plan to explore this in upcoming tutorials.  Meanwhile, enjoy this thought:  however you look at it, everything is connected.

The Power of Gesture

Our gestures express our identity.  Whether in our handwriting,  our gait, or the movement of an arm while talking, folks who know us recognize us as quickly by our gesture as by our voice.

Gesture is movement   Gesture drawing is quick drawing capturing the movement within the subject.  The subject itself might not be moving, but our eyes are in perpetual motion as they scan its visual makeup. Long, subtle curves cause our eyes to move more slowly, short abrupt curves, faster.  We zip right along straight lines and leap from segment to segment when a line changes direction.

When we record these visual movements with a quick, linear drawing--as if doodling--we express the shape's gesture.  Our spectators recognize  the subject by what it's parts are doing rather  than by how it is described.   It is so simple, yet many artists find it challenging.

But for Larry Roebal, it's mere "doodling."

Larry Roebal's "doodle" for April 15, 2011

Almost daily for over the past three years, Larry "doodles" an image from the day's news. Using ballpoint pen, drawing on top of the news article that grabs his attention, he quickly renders a drawing of the news article's subject, then posts the drawing to his daily blog.  Larry calls these gesture drawings "doodles."

Three hundred years ago, there was another "doodler" doing very much the same kind of thing.  You might have heard his name:  Rembrandt.

From the sketchbooks of Rembrandt van Rijn  1606-1669

And five hundred years ago, there was an artist named Michelangelo who was himself quite the doodler .

 From the sketchbooks of Michangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)

This thing we do that Larry calls doodling is an artist's most immediate tool for exploring and discovering  the subject's inherent essence.  It's a means for sharpening our observation skills while doing visual research.  And even though it's not results-oriented, the outcome has a life of its own.

Call it doodling, call it gesture drawing--its label is insignificant.  What is significant is its power to capture and express visually the heart and soul of the subject in the handwriting of the artist.

The Power of a Repoussoir

What do I do if I want to get your attention?

In his popular Fifth Symphony, Beethovan gets our attention with a precise da/da/da/DUM.  And Welsh poet Dylan Thomas opens one of his poems, "And death shall have no dominion."  Not so unlike these attention grabbers, Andrew Wyeth in "Christina's World" does this:

"Christina's World"   Egg Tempera    Andrew Wyeth  

The female image in Wyeth's painting is a repoussoir in action:  it captures our attention and leads us to the distant images.

re·pous·soir

   [ruh-poo-swahr]  

(From Dictionary.com)

What fascinates me about this device is its flexibility, its potential for free expression within a traditional pattern, one that yields unity while bringing us into a painting.  (In case you'd like a more in-depth definition, I explained how repoussoir works in one of my Empty Easel articles a couple of years ago.)

 I particularly enjoy paintings whose notan (see last week's post) is interlocked within a repoussoir.  When I see this working in a painting, it reminds me of an Italian sonnet , a device that acts like a repoussoir:  two major parts where the first is an argument, the second a resolution.

Paintings employing a repoussoir within the notan  pattern have two major parts as well:  one overall light or dark value usually anchored at the bottom of the painting leading the eye to an opposite value anchored at the top.

Anchored at the bottom of each of the three paintings above is a major light leading our eyes to an important dark area anchored at the top.   Richard Schmid does this in his landscape painting on the right, I used in my painting of squirrels on the upper left, and Pat Weaver does a similar thing in a painting of people on the lower left.

If as you look at each of these paintings you squint your eyes,  you can see this happening.  You experience in each piece a repoussoir built within a notan pattern,  three totally different paintings each saying entirely different things, but employing the same device:  a visual sonnet.  Now, that's captivating!

Note:  If you'd like to receive these tutorials by email, sign up in the left column at the top.  And if you'd like me to do a tutorial on some individual composing principle or problem, let me know in the comments section below.

Limits Or An Open Door?

There are no limitations except those we impose.  No form or pattern any artist selects need be confining, rather a glue that holds the piece together.  Today's doctrine that yesterday's pattern inhibits creativity is flat out wrong:  an artistic structure is a scheme, a path the artist chooses to enable an explosion of expression while keeping it unified.  The notion of breaking out of the box misleads us.


One structure I keep revisiting, one visual pattern that continues to lure my attention is the notan,  a simplified arrangement of two major shapes found in the overall collection of lights and darks.

Original photo of Herefords in pasture.

Notan study of original photo.  Notice how each inherent set of lights and the darks link together into one connected shape creating a pattern.  While discovering this pattern, I deleted the frontal trees because they divided the composition.

"Sautee Herefords"   oil painting based on the notan pattern

  

Notan exists as a concept invented somewhere in time and then given a name.  Today I use it as a guide for discovering light and dark patterns in nature.  It is that discovery that I use as the unifying adhesive of a painting.  Confident the notan will hold it together, I'm free to discover and explore all sorts fun stuff.


Chopin did that with the mazurka,--another concept invented and named somewhere in time--as pattern for at least 58 of his compositions.  And Shakespeare used the sonnet pattern--same process, different mode--exploiting it to spout forth more than 150 poems.  (See last week's post.)

Neither notan nor mazurka nor sonnet is a restriction, rather each is a container within which we can discover unlimited possibilities.  We need only to be alert.

What's In This Greatness?

We wonder why some art works live for centuries while others get lost in archives of communal memory. Visual artists, writers and composers create works that excite us humans hundreds of years later.  What is there about Chopin,  Shakespeare and Michelangelo whose works continue to awaken within us a spirit of excitement, a desire to experience their them over and over again?

One thing that keeps getting my attention  is whether by conscious choice or by intention, they all have in common their use of an internal pattern:  Chopin's mazurkas, Shapespeare's sonnets and Michelangelo's triangles. Something about that structure enables artists to express the impact of a moment in time and make it eternal.

What's exciting to me is not the pattern itself, but how the the artists transform their pattern of choice while retaining it's underlying formation.

Michalengelo's "Pieta"


And so discovering patterns and finding ways artists transform them is what I'll be exploring as I resume my Compose tutorials.  That should keep me busy for a while!

Current Update

Howard left us on January 28 of 2010.  I am in the throws of regrouping and coming to terms with my loss.  I have begun painting again, but am easing back into blogging.  So this blog will remain on hold until I can again gain the clarity of mind to resume it.  Meanwhile, thanks for your patience and support.  You can see what's I'm doing  HERE .


Dianne

P.S,  By some miracle, just weeks before Howard's death, we managed to get the poetry manuscript published.  The title is Under the Diamond Pulse, available at Amazon.com for $29.95.

October Update

In July my intentions were to write to this blog when there was an occasional available moment, but there has been no time for that. Howard is a poet and before becoming so ill had just finished compiling a manuscript of recent poetry for publication. There was no energy nor time left to seek out publishers so we both decided to publish it as a website. That has been the project of my focus since early summer. And it's been worth it. Now Howard's poetry is available at howardghanson.com and we both are so proud of the project.

Already having lived six months longer than expected by the doctors and still in the care of hospice, Howard continues to inspire me with a human spirit totally unaware of how fragile a body it lives in. We continue to cherish life rather than grieve impending death, laughing generously and enjoying one another's presence.

Update and More Immediate Plans

It has now been three months since hospice became a way of life in our home. Howard is a real trooper, demanding in every way quality of life and refusing to be bedridden regardless of so very much loss of independence. Care must be constant, but already there have been multiple gems in moments of struggle. And laughter continues to play a key role in our lives.

There is no time or energy to paint, not yet. But I have decided, beginning next week, to resume my tutorials on this blog even though Bagatelles and Meanderings will remain on hold for a while. I have relinquished my writer's position on Empty Easel, at least for the time being. Dan has graciously offered for me to resume those tutorials whenever I can, but I won't be doing that any time soon.

Meanwhile, I look forward to getting my thought processes artward. Stay tuned.

A Brief Time Off Line

Dear Friends,
I wanted to let you know that I have not disappeared, but I will be off-line for some time to come. My soul mate and life partner of the past 28 years is now in the care of Hospice here in our home, and this is where my focus and energies currently are. Until I can get back to painting and blogging, do enjoy what's already here.
Thanks for your visit.
Dianne

The Complete Picture

Early on in my teaching career, I encountered a chart by Ocvirk, Bone, Stinson and Wigg in a text entitled Art Fundamentals, Theory and Practice. The chart was suppose to be a visual diagram of how our principles and elements work together, but I found it lacking so undertook to revise and redesign it. That process lasted for many, many years and still is not over today.

I used the chart as a "cheat sheet" when doing composition lessons with my students and continue to use it today with my critique group, Second Tuesday Art Guild. I introduced it to this blog once before, but am giving it an encore because next week I want to begin a series of tutorials on its contents. So for this week, here's the chart for you to ponder. Beginning next week, we will break it down, flesh it out and pull together how it includes so much of everything that goes into a good painting.

THINK CHART FOR VISUAL COMPOSING

Copyright, 2008 * Dianne Mize

“We construct images, we compose art work.”
The ACTION principles (Things we do to compose)
Select and Place (Rule of Thirds--Golden Mean—Rabatment—Notan, etc.)
Gradate or Modulate
Alternate
Contrast
We do this…
Vary
Repeat
Make similar
Elaborate
Economize
Isolate
Overlap
Juxtapose
Find Angle of Light/Shadow
Find and Use Perspective
Create Dominance
(and more)
The Elements (Our Vocabulary)
Color:
Value
Hue
…with these
Intensity
Temperature
Shape
Size
Direction
Line
Texture
The RESULTS (What We Get)
Pattern to avoid randomness
Balance to prevent one-sidedness
Order to negate chaos
…to get these.
Harmony over discord
Rhythm rather than static
Proportion to avoid lopsidedness
Movement or Transition as opposed to Aimlessness
Form to avoid distortion
Focal Point versus not sure where to look
Emphasis rather than erratic
Eye Path in favor of spottiness
Toward our ULTIMATE GOALS
Unity to avoid divisiveness, fragmentation (We want the work to hold together)
Purpose to negate aimlessness (We want the work to have meaning)
 

Free To Create: The Big Eight

If you've been keeping up with this blog, you know that for the past eight weeks, I've been addressing individually our visual vocabulary, the elements. I've tried to show how each can play its own role in our painting not unlike parts of speech in the spoken language.

A noun names -- a shape defines
A pronoun stands in--size relates
A verb acts -- value structures

An adjective defines -- hue describes

An adverb modifies -- temperature harmonizes
A preposition links--a line leads
A conjunction connects--direction controls
An interjection accents--texture intrigues

We don't need to know what a noun is to ask for a refund, nor do we need to know what a verb is to spend the refund once we get it. English speaking people can communicate very well without knowing a thing about the structure of the English language. But once we DO know how these parts of speech work, we can use them to express ourselves more adequately.

It's called communication. As artists we're involved in a two-sided activity: on the one side we express ourselves--on the other, we communicate what we have expressed. No matter how poorly we have expressed it, something gets communicated even if it's total confusion.

But the better we understand the tools with which we work, the more in control we are with what they can do. The bigger reward, though, is this: the better we understand our tools, the freer we are to be creative with them.

Now, there's a lovely Springtime thought!!!