A little planning

I often spend the first day of beginning class (watercolor or pastel), convincing beginning painters the value of a little planning. Most beginning artists want to jump right in, not wasting time looking for a good composition or value sketching. These terms are almost as dreaded as the capital "D"...drawing. However, as I have mentioned in many previous posts, this step is crucial for me and will save me (and beginning painters) much time and frustration...and will most likely produce a better painting. The principle for me... vision in a concept and a little pre-planning in composition, design principles, and value (and yes, a little drawing) are what will make a painting work...technique will come with time and practice but will not make a painting successful (though well crafted). I am sure some will argue this point.

Keep the plan simple, simplify mass value shapes...light, mid-value, dark...doodle, sketch, erase, play with various perspectives, cropping, and value patterns. Value and appreciate this step. There isn't any pressure here, no need for a finished drawing or painting.

Some tips for "testing" your design. Follow your eyes as they move around the sketch.

1. Does our eye travel effortlessly around the painting, through the light and dark shapes?

2. What is the visual movement in the painting? Have I directed it using line, repetition of shapes, overlapping shapes, "linking" values in a painting, via soft and hard edges in a painting?

3. Do I have a pleasing arrangement and variety of shapes, patterns and values? How did I break up the space? Is the space divided in a pleasing way?

4. Is my perspective "readable"? (Even a 3 min value study, simplified to mass values and shapes, is "readable" on paper).

5. Are my eyes led to a focal area?...away from the focal area and back in again? Do I have a secondary area of interest? How does the viewer travel from one to the other?

6. And finally, do I have visual excitement and spatial organization?

Before the drawing...

Quite a bit of planning occurs before I begin the drawing for a painting. I have found that I am much more successful with a painting when I have organized and done a little prep-work first. Thumbnail sketching is often a part of my initial planning. Small sketches can be great tools to help you simplify the abstract areas in your design, determine a structure for your composition (if desired), better understand the value and shape relationships, and explore possibilities in design before committing to it in your final painting.
A few tips for thumbnail sketching: Keep your sketches small and simple. They should only take about 5 min each to complete. Don't worry about details, just focus on a pleasing arrangement of shapes and values. Above, I am generalizing mass areas and identifying the areas of lights and darks. I ask myself...Do I want to follow a design structure (or armature) for my painting? Where are the areas of lightest lights and darkest darks? How can I use these shapes to enhance the design of my painting? How will I use these lights and darks (and line direction) to create movement in the painting? How will the viewer's eyes travel around the painting (passage)? Do I have (and want) a focal point?

One of the most exciting aspects of painting for me is finding order in apparent randomness, especially in life and snapshots of everyday moments. For this reason, I don't "stage" my still-life paintings. I find order in what is already there. For example, the garlic above was a photo from the farmer's market near my studio in Fredericksburg. Armatures serve as the backbone structure of a painting, will help create a coherent flow, and are a starting point to determine placement of shapes, values, and color. The disclaimer here... not all paintings need to have a structure to be successful and not all compositions lend themselves to structure (i.e. single-object still life, continuous field compositions, portraits, etc), but many do. Above are a few common compositional structures. Again, these structures are simply guides, not rules, and for beginning painters, will provide a direction in helping you organize and be more successful with your paintings.

Kid's Art Safari at LibertyTown

A few things I learned teaching art camp this week.
1. It is impossible to be toooo silly.

2. 6 and 7 year olds love to smile and laugh.

3. Children have wonderful imaginations. Want to know all the possibilities of creating a map collage (and what to do with it)? Ask a 6 year old.

4. Plan plenty of "extension" activities. Art exploring can be very exciting.

5. It is physically impossible for 6, 7, & 8 year olds to sit still, not talk and giggle, draw silly faces, and not skip. Something like "exploding heads" may result.