The Question of Style

A question asked most often by emerging artists is "How do I find my style?"

Style--that unique characteristic that links an artist to his or her work.  Where does this characteristic come from? How is it that anybody familiar with Charles Reid or Jennifer McChristian or Carla O'Connor can recognize one of their paintings without seeing a signature?

Look at these three paintings, one by each of these three artists:

Charles Reid     Watercolor

Jennifer McChristian   Oil

Carla O'Conner   Water media

Each is the same subject matter, the female figure.  The art critic would describe in detail how each style is different from the other two and unique to the artist who did the painting, but I don't want to do that.  You can see their differences for yourself, and if you go to their websites, you can see how each of their styles is uniquely expressed in these paintings.  No, what I want to address is how artists acquire their styles.

The single thing Reid, McChristian and O'Connor have in common is that each of them knows how to paint:  they know their craft. They have learned and matured their skills.  They can paint without thinking about how to do it.  So, before a style can fully emerge, an artist has to be so comfortable with drawing and painting that no conscious thought has to be given to the how-to of it.

Developing skills to this extent requires practice, lots of practice.  And here is where artists lose the advantage enjoyed by musicians, actors, poets, and all other performers. That advantage is that the practice sessions are distinct from the performance.  Evidence of the struggle gets left behind the scene.

Not so for painters:  we have our practice pieces starring us in the face.  And there's always somebody wanting to see what we've done, leaving us vulnerable to their comments.  Nobody has to hear a musician's practice nor hear an actor's rehearsing nor watch an ice skater's workout, but once an artist has done a practice painting, it's there to be seen as if it's the final statement.

Because of this one thing, too many emerging artists think every piece must be a masterpiece.  They are not given the leisure of practice pieces.  In fact,  too often their teachers neglect to remind them that class work is practice, not performance.

The irony of all this is that true style emerges and evolves during the act of doing.  It cannot be contrived nor intentionally invented without being faked.  In fact, if style is forced or invented intentionally or cloned from another artist, it cannot last because it has no where to go.  I admit a slim possibility that an artist can evolve out of an induced style into his and her own uniqueness, but there's a danger of getting stuck only to reach a dead end.

It is safer and less stressful to just allow syle to happen within the act of doing.  While skills are being developed, the artist's uniqueness can emerge if it is allowed to.  In fact, developing your own style is the easiest part of becoming an artist.  You don't have to try to do anything at all beyond adjusting your attitude about it.  Allow yourself the leisure of practice. Lots and lots of practice.  Learn your craft and the style will follow.

Style is nothing more than the artist's natural response within and to the entire process of painting.

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Note:  The idea for this tutorial came while listening to Robert Genn being interviewed by Leslie Saeta and Dreama Tolle Perry on their blogcast, Artists Helping Artists.  You can listen to Robert's interview by going HERE.

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If you have something you'd like me to address in these weekly tutorials, send me an email at dianne.mize@gmail.com and I'll be happy to give it my best shot.

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.

And Then There Is Shape

What is a shape?

Try this. A shape is an area enclosed with edges, specific or implied. That's my definition.

I could not believe it. I checked the definition in my trusty old 1960 edition of Webster's New World Dictionary and I found garbley-gook. Then I got curious and started Googling for a definition. Same thing. Even dictionary.com has no clear definition for shape.

Aside from the definition, let's try to understand shape as it pertains to us as artists. First of all, important for artists to know is that every shape has two parts: the space occupied by the shape and the space around the shape. You can't have one without the other. Think about it.
Above is the famous "Hare" by Albrecht Durer along side a portrait by Pat Weaver. Both have in common an acute observation of the shape itself as well as the space around the shape. That's what makes both shapes interesting to look at, even in silhouette.
Look at the silhouette images in reverse. Switch your attention to the black shapes. Notice how interesting each black shape is on its own. Beyond being aware of both shape and the space around it, each artist has made these shapes interesting by careful observation of their edges and how the edges relate to both sides--the shape and its surrounding space.

But before we dwell on that, let's explore some nomenclature.

Since the early 20th century, shapes that occupy space have been called positive shapes whereas the space surrounding a shape is called negative space. I've always objected to these labels and I'm not alone: efforts abound to find more definitive labels, but none seem to stick. So, we will let it stay for now and use the historical labeling. (If any of you has a suggestion for how we might rename these shapes, please leave them in Comments. Thanks.)

Okay, that tells us one characteristic of shapes. The other is that they fall into two catagories--geometric shapes and organic shapes. Loosely defined, geometric shapes are those with precise edges such as a circle, square, triangle, rectangle and so on. Organic shapes are all the others, shapes whose edges are more random. In painting we are likely to be dealing with both.

And here is where the discussion gets tricky: we can know all this about shapes, but using shapes dynamically in our painting and drawing is a bit different from just knowing about them. So how can we make that happen?

Use acute observation and sensitive interpretation. Just that. Rather than look at a shape and call it a rock, for example, first look for the underlying geometric shape that forms its structure, then study intensely the variations of the edges because these variations are what create the real character of the shape.

Next, look closely at the value and textural relationship of both sides of a shape's edge. Sometimes the negative will be blending right into the positive, sometimes there is a softness between the two and sometimes there is a distinct division.

In my judgement, Charles Reid is one of the best shape-makers among our 20/21st century artists.

Charles Reid "Claire" Watercolor on paper

Reid begins each of his paintings by doing a careful contour drawing to discover and anchor the shapes and their relationships to one another. When he begins his painting, he is constantly shifting between negative and positive, sometimes causing edges between the two to be lost; other times, creating a softness between them and at others, showing distinct sharpness to the edges. What results is a lively painting that continues to invite the viewer to return to it.

For me personally, Reid's paintings are like Chopin piano works--I want to revisit them over and over again. I think that desire to keep looking at a art work is one of the marks of its strength and success. And when an artist is truly tuned in to the characteristics of each shape, a lot is bound to get translated into the resulting work.

Try this. Visit websites of artists like Reid, Jennifer McChristian, Richard Schmid, Carolyn Anderson, Robert Genn and others whose work is strong. List the ways they handle shapes in light of this discusssion, then try some of those techniques yourself and watch the world open up.

Ten Composing Commandments

Not long after I began this blog about composing, I started receiving e-mails from various artists asking me what I think are the most important considerations while composing. It is true that if one looks at all the principles and their ramifications, it can be overwhelming to say the least and confusing at best.

While I am pretty dogmatic about the importance of an artist learning how to use the principles as tools, I am equally dogmatic about forgetting about them during the painting process. It's a dichotomy in a way: what can be the strength of a painting can also destroy it.

Learning to use these tools must become a part of our bone marrow just as an ice skater's tools are deeply embedded within her muscles. Ice skaters must not think while they are performing; neither must the painter. Yet because our guides live within us, they will under gird whatever we do with our craft.

I gave it some thought and came up with my preferred list. Notice it assumes we're already learned the compositional tools. Or that we apply what we have learned then go learn some more.

Ten Commandments for Composing a Painting
Prelude: Have a clear idea--a concept--of what you want the painting to be about. (Thanks, Marc Hanson, for suggesting that I add this in.)
1. Study subject intensely before committing a single brush stroke
2. Squint while studying subject
3. Search for patterns of light while squinting
4. Search for patterns of dark while squinting
5. Extract design pattern from findings of 3 and 4 and develop
6. While painting look three times, think twice, paint once. (courtesy Robert Genn)
7. Keep every color applied consistent with the temperature of the light source. (Courtesy Richard Schmid)
7. Edit between sessions not while painting
9. Taken advantage of compositional tools throughout.
10. Ignor whatever doesn't belong.

Because each of us is unique, we each must develop our own individual approach to painting. I'm sharing mine only because I enjoy sharing ideas. On my website, I've attempted a personal account of my own creative process. You can see it HERE.

Still Playing With Balance

When I was a kid growing up in rural north Georgia, we made our own see-saws with a long board across a wooden sawhorse. Two kids, one on either end of the board, and we were off for a fun ride. Only problem was if one kid was a lot heavier than the other, she got the short end of the board. That meant the lighter weight kid got a higher ride and therefore having a lot more fun. We knew instinctively that the seesaw wouldn't balance if we didn't adjust the location of the board on the sawhorse according to the difference in the kids' weights.

When we're dealing with asymmetrical balance in our painting (as opposed to symmetrical in last week's post), we've got the same problem as kids on a seesaw. So what are we talking about? What makes visual weight and what is visual balance?

In picture making, we've got horizontal balance, (that's the seesaw type), vertical balance (the kind we experience when we're standing straight up) and radial balance (that's like a bicycle wheel where the outward forces pull toward the center and vice versa). All these are a part of the visual balance we deal with in painting. They're put into play by where we place things, their sizes, proportions, physical characteristics and directions.

That's a bunch of stuff, right? Well, just consider it labeling. It's really about how the equilibrium feels in a painting when you look at it. We've got an inborn sense about that and after all, it's where we place things that is the biggest issue.

Look at this painting by Robert Genn ("In A Moscow Cafe" Acrylic)
First, I'll draw a line down the middle so we can see how the images are placed in relation to the center.

Notice how most of the man's image appears on the left side of the painting, yet it feels balanced. Why? With the man's face turned towards the left and with most of the content of the painting on the left, we should feel slightly topsy-turvy, but we don't. Why is that?

Notice the picture on the wall placed at the top right corner, most of which is outside of the painting? And look at those interesting edges on the man's sleeve. I'm going to take away these two things and let you see what happens to the balance.

Now, see how our eyes go to the man's face and either shoot off to the left of the painting or hang around with the man's face and the newspaper.

It appears Genn was playing with horizontal balance. The man's face turned toward the side of the newspaper closest to the left edge gives a visual pull in that direction, but the strong light on his hand makes a counter pull toward the right. The interested edges along the sleeve do the same, then the picture at the top going off the upper right hand side gives that final additional visual weight to balance the whole piece. Wow!

Now look back at Robert's painting as he meant it to be and you'll see what I'm talking about.

In coming weeks I'll continue with vertical and radial balance. Meanwhile, prowl around works of accomplished artists and sleuth out their balancing strategies.

And don't miss my weekly tutorial each Tuesday on Empty Easel. Meanwhile, Empty Easel is loaded with resource info. Subscribe to the newsletter if you haven't already to get a review each Sunday of the upcoming week's riches.