Looky Here

Just returned from the San Luis Obispo plein air event that wrapped up last weekend. One of the features during the event was a lecture by Jean Stern, executive director of the Irvine Museum, on “The Art of Looking at Art.” Part of his educational discussion which I found intriguing, was his breakdown of directional eye movement throughout a painting. A thorough example of how artists use shape, line, value and contrast to move you around their compositions. Once he finished, I quickly went to look at my work to see if I accomplished what he was talking about. I was happy to find that (in my humble opinion) I felt I succeeded. Above is one of my paintings from the week-long event and the inset is how I saw the movement within the work.

This 9x12 scene, “Girls at Bay” depicted one of the inlets at the south end of Morro Bay. I loved the colorful buildings and boats in the distance and wanted to make that my focus. Guiding the viewer around your painting and getting them to look at the things you want them to is always one of my main goals. Just like a good author or director guides you through their novel or movie, the same holds true for a painting. As I composed this scene, my objective was to give the viewer a few nuggets of information and the rest of the elements were used to support and guide you along the way. Keeping the foreground simple and minimizing hard edges and high contrasts, allows your eye to “look past” those elements and move up to the structures. The sweep of the shoreline invites the viewer into the scene. I kept the two overturned boat values very similar to the ground color to give them a less important feel. Your eye should move past those and curve around to the left. Once there, you’re in the focus and invited to move between the three circled areas of the harbor, the orange house and the contrast between the brighter boats on the shore with the dark mass of the foreground tree. The tops of the distant trees help guide you back down to the harbor, as does the verticals of the boat masts. The hard-edged arc of the dark foreground tree keeps you from exiting to the right. The little blue boat I felt was the most critical element in the painting. In actuality, it was white and blended in with the large boat behind it. I changed it a dark blue, to give it contrast and used the hard edge and direction of the bow to point you back into the painting instead of letting your eye exit to the left. I kept all of the tree and bush shapes simple to keep you focused on the structural elements. Since my focus is in the mid-ground of the painting, I didn’t add too much detail to the buildings and boats. Just a few hints of windows and things to keep them feeling farther away and yet still describing what they are. This lets the viewer use their imagination to fill in the story instead of painting in every little detail.

Good direction is always key. Although nobody likes to be told what to do, a gentle nudge down the right path never hurts. Enjoy!

It’s All Black and White

As I was finishing up my workshop this past weekend, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the overall abstract shape in a painting. Most of the time, I don’t immediately recognize this or it just comes through naturally, but I find myself drawn to it more and more, especially when I notice it in other artists work. Edgar Payne was a master at composing it, particularly in his boat scenes. And a lot of other great painters utilize this as a foundation for their paintings. So here’s my take on it using a piece completed for the San Luis Obispo plein air event two months ago. The painting above, “The Cheryl Sea” is a 12" x 9" scene in Morro Bay, CA.

How I view the abstract shape is figuring out what the overall image would look like if you stripped it down to a black and white contrast. (I’ve done this to my painting in the insert as an example). When I view the composition in this way, I can visualize the effect of the light and dark relationship and whether it holds an overall dynamic interest. If this shape is pleasing, then the final painting has a good chance of success. I can do this quickly in my sketchbook before I start by blocking in the dark mass and adjusting the ­composition accordingly. Once completed, I’ll sketch this in on my canvas and position it so my focal area is where I want. As I begin the painting process, keeping my values in the same range will hold this shape together. Then I can simply alter the temperature and colors to define the different elements in the ­painting.

While I don’t think this holds true for every painting, looking for it and using it as an option has helped me discover scenes I might normally pass up. Enjoy!

Big Bottoms

Fresh off the Just Plein Fun show plus wrapping up my three-day workshop. I’ve noticed my appeal of a large simple weight at the bottom of a painting. As I study my contemporaries and look for my own compositions, this area interests me more and more as solution to not having a piece feel “top heavy.” I touched upon it briefly when teaching and thought I’d share my thinking.

While I enjoy low horizons in other artists works, I rarely find them appealing myself. I usually like to put my horizon in the upper half of the painting and use the weight of the land as an anchor. This has some built-in benefits that immediately work: One, the large shape gives the scene a simple bottom mass to rest upon (think of a matted painting .... the mat is usually cut with a thicker bottom width than the top and sides). And two, it creates a nice, easy entry up to the focus. I like to use some simple brush work or a directional line such as the buoy rope or mast reflection in the above two paintings to move your eye in. For me, this also creates a smaller focal area to worry about and plenty of breathing room around the subject. In the paintings above, it helped me from getting the boats too big and crowding the edges. It also allowed plenty of space for other items to support the boats, such as buoys, buoy lines, masts and rigging lines. I felt that including these better told the story especially when my subject matter was so simple.

In these two 12x9 paintings completed at the Just Plein Fun event, I tried not to get carried away with detail in the bottom portions. Trying to add temperature changes instead of value changes in the one with the large sand mass. On the single boat, I needed a bit more interest in the water since the boat was so subdued. I added a couple of highlights on the water ripples for added interest and eye movement.

So, in honor of Spinal Tap’s 25th anniversary ... “Big Bottoms, My Works Got ’Em.” Enjoy!

Next week: Paintings that go to eleven.

Editing Confusion

Just returned from the always fun Easton Plein Air event out in Maryland. Above is one of my entries for the competition, “The Mildred Belle”, a 9x16 painting of a historic Chesapeake Bay “Buy Boat” that caught my eye on this overcast morning during the event. This boat was used as a middle-man for oyster and crab fishermen to bring their catch to market in the early 1950s.

I was drawn to the wonderful cool whites against the gray blue water and was interested in seeing if I could capture that effect. The trick was eliminating all of the confusing background that competed with the boat itself. I’ve attached my photo of the scene so you can see what was omitted. (This piece was painted entirely in plein air and my photo was only for documentation.) Good editing is always needed in any painting, but I had to be much more inventive for this one. The large lighthouse that was behind the boat was virtually the same color, limiting my impact of whites to contrast the boat. I deleted that entirely and used the red building behind it as a better shape. Its deeper rust color helped that small white piece of the bow to pop. I had to walk around the lighthouse, catch a glimpse of the red structure, then painted that in loosely from memory. It was the same on the left side of the scene with the other large boats directly behind. I deleted those too, but needed something in the distance to suggest the harbor, so I painted the two distant boats from a couple that were much farther to the left. I continued the green tree mass behind everything for added simplicity. Now I had a quieter, complementary background to support my main interest. I painted the Belle next but further omitted small, unsightly items such as the orange cooler and aft canopy, plus a few ropes and other items that were unnecessary. I added the American flag on the back and few more rust streaks, but pretty much stayed true to the ship.

The result was this simple portrait instead of a confusing mess of shapes. If we can’t see the forest for the trees, sometimes a beautiful scene can be overlooked. This was one time I didn’t mind that the sun never appeared. Enjoy!

Eighty / Twenty

Just finished up another 3-day workshop last weekend. I thank all those who attended. As I was thinking about all the topics we covered, one that stands out in my mind is the 80/20 rule: 80 percent of a painting is unimportant and 20 percent is. It’s not to say that the 80 percent doesn’t matter, quite the contrary. This large portion is the foundation of a painting, your supporting cast that backs up the focal points and main interest. We can’t have every element matter, some areas are quiet and others command attention. By following this rule, I find that I can keep my paintings from “getting away from me”, with too much detail or being overly busy.

In “Fish Stories”, the painting above, that was my goal. Only the main white areas of the boat matter. Everything else was minimized by painting the values close and the edges soft. This large dark mass supports my focus, yet if you look close there is plenty going on, it just doesn’t overstate my main interest. 

I’ve always enjoyed paintings that reward you upon closer inspection. When you first see this painting, you only see the boat, but when you look into it further, then you see the guys working, the ropes and junk that make up a fishing dock. Just like a free dessert, unexpected but always welcomed! Enjoy.