Pattern and its Unifying Effects

Pattern is an underlying structure that organizes surfaces or structures in a consistent, regular manner. Pattern can be described as a repeating unit of shape or form, but it can also be thought of as the “skeleton” that organizes the parts of a composition. It is one of the most effective ways to unify a painting.
A compositional technique that is not new, Pattern can be found in ancient Chinese, Egyptian and Greek art. It was used extensively as a mode of design by artists in the 17th century when the chiaroscuro technique became popular. Chiaroscuro is a method of painting using strong contrasts between light and dark. 

An excellent example of pattern is “Descent from the Cross,” by Peter Paul Reubens. In this painting, the eye is drawn first to the white drapery, and then to the figure of Christ. The eye flows downward from the upper right side toward the lower left and then the middle, with strong contrasting shapes, using light values and vibrant color.



Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee
     by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

Another example of pattern is Rembrandt’s "Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee," where the lighter values emphasize the focus of the painting, while the darker values deemphasize everything else around it. The brightest shapes, the waves that are lashing the boat and the crew that is struggling to manage the sails are bathed in light, while the rest of the passengers, including the sleeping Christ are in shadow. 

 "Cumbrian Waterfall" by Richard Schmid

Nature sometimes provides excellent examples of pattern. In “Cumbrian Waterfall,” Richard Schmid used the natural formation of a waterfall and created a single connected shape of light value that winds its way downward between two shapes of contrasting dark values. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the flowing water and follow it downward.

Creating Pattern

Pattern can be a large shape (or a grouping of shapes) within a picture that forms an abstract design. You can create this shape by connecting dark or light shapes of a subject against a contrasting background. Sometimes nature provides a ready-made pattern. Other times, as in still life setups, you can manipulate your subject to achieve an interesting pattern.
Patterns in Nature

Peter S. Stevens, a Harvard biologist, in his book entitled “Patterns in Nature” claims that there are only a finite number of ways that patterns can be structured in nature.

He says that pattern can be classified in five different ways:

• Flow
• Branching
• Spiral
• Packing
• Cracking

All things Flow, following paths of least resistance. Flow can be seen in water, stone, and the growth of trees and other plants. A meandering form of flow shows a movement and repetition of an undulating line.

Branching occurs in the plant world in trees and many plants, but it can also be seen in geological formations, including river deltas.

Galaxies form Spiral patterns, but you can also see evidence of spiral patterns in the opening “fiddlehead” buds of ferns and in nautilus shells.

Packing refers to the way in which compacted cells define each other’s shape. A densely packed cluster of mushrooms will grow together, deforming the circular form of each cap because of crowding.

Cracking Surfaces (like mud or old paint) that shrink as they dry may experience cracking, resulting in a similar cellular pattern.

Subject and Focus

 Recently, I wrote about two methods of composition, specifically the Golden Mean and the Rule of Thirds. Both have been popular techniques for designing a composition for centuries and are still valid today. I’d like to take a step back and talk about the first stages of designing a picture. Before you can decide how to arrange a subject, you need to have an interesting subject, one that you are drawn to and one that attracts the viewer. Along with that decision, you should be thinking about the main focus of your composition. Without a focus, the viewer will become confused, and the design will seem as if it is missing something.

Choosing an Interesting Subject

The decision to paint something revolves around two things: 1. the object, person, or view and 2. your interpretation of that subject. Both are related. What you paint has to be interesting enough to make you want to paint it, beyond thoughts of how pretty it is or how different it is. You need to see your subject as you would interpret it. You should be emotionally drawn to it, with the thought running through your mind, “There’s something about this subject that stirs my imagination. I need to draw/paint it!” For example, I was interested in this old red farmhouse that was surrounded by lush old oak trees with a meandering dirt path leading up to it. But, when some guinea hens began to strut toward the house, I knew I had my subject. I deliberately brightened the area around the leading hens to draw the eye inward onto the hens and up toward the house. 

A good painting unites both the subject before you and your interpretation. When you decide on your picture, you should take into account the values, light, shapes, and negative spaces and arrange all to make a unified whole.



“The artist brain is the sensory brain: sight and sound, smell and taste, touch. These are the elements of magic, and magic is the elemental stuff of art.” Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Your Composition Should Have a Focus

Whether it’s a drawing or a painting, your composition should include something that represents the central focus.

Wherever we look, our eyes naturally find something to focus on, and as we do, everything else becomes secondary. It’s impossible to focus on more than one thing at once. You will see things in your peripheral vision, but not as clearly as the subject your eyes are focused on. So, too, should your picture have something that draws the eye, with everything around it holding a subordinate position. Without a central focus, your picture is just a collection of artifacts. A focus is where the lines of direction and movement should lead the eye. That place should draw a person’s attention and keep it in the picture. Sometimes it’s obvious what the focal point is.

This picture, Duck Sitting on Falls, is a perfect example of a strong focal point. I remember that it was a pleasantly warm summer day so I decided to check out the park where a fresh water pond with a stone bridge stretched several blocks. There were ducks and geese enjoying the water on one end of the pond. At the other end, the sound of a slow waterfall called me like a peaceful lure. A few ducks were lazily swimming about, but I was taken by the nature of the scene on the falls in front of me. A duck is resting in the sun near the edge of the falls. He appears to be enjoying the cool, rhythmic flow of the water below. It inspired me emotionally and I knew right away that he would be my focal point.

The focal point is the most interesting part of the picture and it’s what draws the eye on first sight. But how does one figure out the focal point in a scene where there are a number of things vying for attention? This is where interpretation comes in. You are the artist, it’s up to you to figure out your focal point, emphasize it, and subdue or eliminate the other items. 

To create a single powerful center of interest, use the brightest colors, the sharpest edges, and the most contrasting values to make it stand out. The trees in the background of this picture have softer edges and receding values. The waterfall below the duck directs the eye vertically upward. The brightest area of the picture is the body of the duck, and it has the sharpest edges and strongest contrast.

The next time you decide to paint or draw something, keep in mind both the importance and emotional investment of the subject and how it can become the focal point of your picture. 

My Favorite Gardens

This week I'd like to share some of my paintings of the gardens that I have visited and enjoyed painting. I love to paint en plein air at all types of places, including urban landscapes, beaches, lakes, fields and farms, but I love painting beautiful gardens the best of all. When the daffodils come out and hail the beginning of spring, I get excited by the bright cheerful colors that pop up among the dull browns left from winter's cold embrace. As soon as the weather permits, I'm hunting for garden spots all over the state. Here are a few wonderful places that I've visited lately.

The Pardee Rose Garden

The Pardee Rose Garden in Hamden is a hidden gem. It's small, just about two acres, but the roses are not to be missed. It's quiet and somewhat hidden, but a wonderful secluded place to paint, draw, or just take a stroll. The garden is sectioned off with stretches of wild and hybrid roses and other flowering plants. The park established in 1922 was a gift from William S. Pardee. It is part of Edgerton park and is maintained by the city of New Haven.

Harkness Memorial State Park

I often go to paint at Harkness Memorial State Park in Waterford. There are several gardens to choose from and they all have their distinctive design. The scene here is the Duck Boy fountain in the West Garden. The gardens are maintained by the state with the help of many volunteers.

The mansion, ‘Eolia’ named for the island home of the Greek god of winds, was built in 1906 and purchased by Edward and Mary Harkness in 1907. The 200+ acres were a working farm and the Mansion was the Harkness’ summer home.

From 1918 to 1929, Beatrix Jones Farrand (landscape designer, one of the founders of the American Society of Landscape Architects) redesigned the west garden and created and installed the East Garden, the Boxwood Parterre and the Alpine Rock Garden.

Elizabeth Park Rose Garden

The Elizabeth Park Rose Garden, located in Hartford, is a great place to paint if you love roses. The arches are in full bloom in mid-June into early July, and are just spectacular.

The Helen S Kaman Rose Garden is the center of Elizabeth Park. It is the first municipal rose garden in the United States and the third largest rose garden in the country.

Elizabeth Park's Rose Garden became the first official test garden in 1912 for the American Rose Society founded in 1892, with the idea to test and to provide accurate information about roses for the public. This is when the half-circular section of the garden was added on the south side of the main square. In 1937, the American Rose Society asked the Park to add another semi-circle, which completes the garden of 2.5 acres as it stands today.

Florence Griswold Museum

With the twelve acres of scenic beauty, there's plenty of places to paint at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme. Miss Florence’s garden and orchard were the subject for so many paintings by the Lyme Art Colony artists in the early 1900s. Florence Griswold was a keen gardener. From seed catalogs and references to gardening books among her correspondence, she was constantly in search of new and unusual plants. She helped others, including several of the Lyme artists, to establish their own gardens with “good, old-fashioned flowers” and filled her own home with small, informally arranged bouquets of fresh flowers.

Hollister House Garden

I recently discovered a beautiful, magical place to paint, the Hollister House Garden in Washington.
Designed with American interpretation of classic English gardens, it is formal in its structure but informal and rather wild in its style of planting. Begun in 1979 by George Schoellkopf, the garden is sited on the southeastern side of a rambling but serenely dignified eighteenth century house on 25 acres of mostly wooded countryside.

The garden unfolds in successive layers of space and color with delightful informal vistas from one section to the next. Eight-to-ten-foot walls and hedges with dramatic changes in level define the progression of garden spaces – “rooms” as the English like to say – and create a firm architectural framework for the romantic abundance of the plantings. A winding brook and a large pond at the bottom of the lawn add to the variety of the garden scene. They welcome plein air painters every Wednesday morning from 8 am-12 pm. It’s free. Just sign up on their website.

Jeanne’s Garden

I happen to know a few people who are avid gardeners, and my friend Jeanne is one of them. Not a day goes by that she's not out working hard in her gardens. There’s one large sunny one with meandering crushed stone paths that flowers most of the spring, summer and fall. She also has a peaceful shade garden replete with a wooden swing for those lazy days spent with a good book. If she's not in her garden, she's in her shed re-potting plants, making markers for her plants, or starting seedlings.
It's easy to find something beautiful to paint there.

My Quince Bush

My quince bush was especially beautiful this year. The blossoms are mostly pink, but here and there some red petals appear, adding an interesting twist. I love to garden and this year was a good one for flowering plants. From the white and yellow daffodils to the pale pink and fuchsia peonies, the fiery bee balm, peach and ruby day lilies and tall orange centered pink cone flowers, it's fun to see what colors are going to appear next. And, it's fun to watch the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees hover around the blossoms as they gather their food. Sometimes, your backyard is as good a place to paint as any.

Famous Paintings of Gardens

From Sargent to Sorolla, Jonas Wood to Winston Churchill, Berkshire to Bali — here's a video and some reading on how artists have found solace and inspiration in gardens the world over.

Christies' Are these the most beautiful gardens in art?

The Golden Mean and the Rule of Thirds

The composition of a drawing or painting is crucial to its success. A strong and solid design draws the eye and stirs emotions. Though there are no hard and fast rules for composition, there are guides that are helpful when designing a layout. Two of the most popular guides that have been used throughout history are the Golden Mean and its relative, the Rule of Thirds.

The Golden Mean The Golden Mean or Golden Ratio has gone by many names through the ages: The Divine Proportion, The Golden Section, Medial Section and Golden Cut. Its visual representation shows up again and again in the world that surrounds us, from the architecture of The Great Pyramids to the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci to the Fibonacci Sequence that we see in nature and the galaxies.

Golden Mean’s Origins

The Golden Mean’s origins are rooted in mathematics. The unique number known as “Phi” — 1.618 — represents a “Golden Ratio” that can be found in art, theology, cosmology, nature, architecture — even financial markets.

Phi is derived by dividing a line so that the longer section divided by the shorter is equal to the full length of the line divided by the longer. You’re probably scratching your head if you are anyone like me. I’m not a mathematician and the very thought of math gives me agida, so I need a visual example. Here’s what Phi looks like when it’s geometrically reduced down several times into what are known as Golden Rectangles.

Philosophical Interpretation

Thousands of years ago, ancient Greek philosophers, notably Aristotle, started converting the mathematical Golden Mean into a philosophical interpretation. The Greeks felt it was an attribute of beauty and believed that there is a close association in mathematics between beauty and truth. They believed there were three "ingredients" to beauty: symmetry, proportion and harmony.

Similar interpretations can be found in ancient Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, and Judaism teachings. Its definition varied a bit from discipline to discipline, but the essence was always the same: Stay away from the extremes. Find the middle track. Out of moderation, comes virtues. Truth. Beauty. Balance. If you can travel the middle path of moderation and temperance, goodness and beauty will accompany you. The Mean was so essential to Greek philosophy that they inscribed it on the Temple of the Apollo at Delphi: μηδὲν ἄγαν μηδὲν ἄγαν — “nothing in excess.”

The Golden Spiral

Using Golden Rectangles as a guide, you can create a design guide known as the Golden Spiral. Connect the nesting points of the Golden Rectangles with the arcs of 1/4 of a circle, sizing each to fit. The Golden Spiral design integrates movement, direction, and asymmetry in a pleasing arrangement. You will find several examples of the Golden Spiral in Renaissance art, including Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus and Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam.

When designing a picture, whether a painting or drawing, keep in mind how you want to direct the eye. Using the Golden Spiral, you can draw in the eye with shapes, lines and colors and gradually lead the eye to your center of focus. You can turn the spiral around and flip it in any direction and use it as a guide to place your center of focus.

In this painting, the brightest area (the yellow building), is the middle of the spiral, and the eye is drawn along the shoreline and upward and around to it.

A variation of the spiral can be found throughout nature, including flowers and plants, weather patterns, outer space, and sea shells.

The Rule of Thirds

A relative to the Golden Mean is the Rule of Thirds. The Rule of Thirds states that an image is most pleasing when its subjects or regions are composed along imaginary lines which divide the image into thirds — both vertically and horizontally. Here’s an example of the division of a rectangle using the Rule of Thirds:

You don’t need to perfectly align everything with the thirds of an image. The important thing is to place your main focus approximately where the lines cross. In most cases, try to avoid putting the focus in the middle of the picture.


For landscapes, this usually means having the horizon align with the upper or lower third of the image. This can make landscape compositions much more dynamic. Also, placing your subject off center can provide a sense of direction for the eye. I find that I often use this method to place the focus of my paintings.

Next

I hope you enjoyed this lesson on the Golden Mean and the Rule of Thirds. Hopefully, you will think about these methods when you draw or paint a picture. Next time, I will take a break from my online instruction and show you some of my latest artwork. I’ll include my recommendations for beautiful places to paint and draw.

Alkyd Mediums

You can use oil paint straight from the tube or dilute it with thinners. However, you can also experiment with drying oils, resins, waxes, and diluents to alter the characteristics of your tube color. Most manufacturers offer several types of medium that can improve the flow of paint, provide a satin or gloss finish and speed up or retard the drying time of oil paint. Last week, I explained how drying oils work as binders and as mediums. This week, we’ll take a look at Alkyd mediums.

Composition of Alkyd Mediums

Alkyd mediums are made up of resins produced by a reaction of natural oil with a poly-functional alcohol and poly-basic acid.

There are two ways of introducing an alkyd into your painting. The first and most common is the use of an alkyd medium. Alkyd painting mediums are popular because they are made with milder solvents and speed the drying time of oil colors. Liquin and Galkyd are the best-known alkyd mediums. M. Graham also makes a walnut oil-based alkyd, which is the glossiest followed by the Galkyd, with the Liquin having a more satin finish. Liquin and Galkyd contain lead, which speeds up the drying time, but can be toxic in a closed setting. For this reason, you should only use alkyd resins in an open area with good ventilation.

Benefits of Using Alkyd Mediums

Thin layers of oil colors mixed with alkyd resin painting medium will dry in twenty-four hours and make very tough, yet flexible paint films. Alkyd-based painting mediums can also add gloss and transparency to paint layers and help prevent drying in, which is when the darks in a painting lose their gloss and look matte compared to other parts of the picture. Good for layering, alkyd mediums can be used for very complex glazing applications. Drying time can be extended by adding a few drops of linseed oil. Mineral spirits can be used for thinning. 

Thick Vs. Thin Alkyds

Alkyds are available in a variety of properties, including thinning, thickening, glossy finish, matte finish, fast drying time, slow drying time and come in fluids or gels. Fluids can be obtained in both fast or slow-drying, high viscosity (thicker, can show brush marks), or low viscosity (great for washes). Gels are thicker than the high viscosity fluids, and can be used to show pronounced brush marks in the paint film and will not turn into a fluid as they are worked. Gels also come in various viscosities aimed principally at the painters who want to develop more impasto in their work.

Alkyd Paint

The second means of introducing alkyd into a painting is the use alkyd paints. There are several available, including Da Vinci, C.A.S., Gamblin, Grumbacher, and Windsor & Newton. Note: As a binder, alkyd resin cannot hold as high a pigment load as linseed oil. Alkyds can be mixed with regular oils and are reduced with the same solvents. To speed up the drying time of regular oils, you can substitute a few of your most frequently used oil colors for alkyd colors, such as white and ultramarine blue. Because these colors are used in so many mixtures, it speeds up the overall drying time of all colors.

Some Cautions

For optimal adhesion, alkyd mediums should not be used over the top of traditional oil painting mediums or unmodified, slow-drying paint. Regular oil paint can be layered over alkyds, but it is not recommended that alkyds be layered over oil, as the less flexible alkyd film may crack. Adding an alkyd resin will make a color layer fatter, while adding solvent will make a color layer leaner. Therefore, only the lower layers should contain solvent and the upper layers should contain increasing amounts of alkyd medium.

Conclusion

Alkyd resins can change the look and feel of your paint. Some artists don’t use any alkyd resins, claiming that they dilute the color intensity and lack the "jewel like" look of oil paint. While alkyds are a very durable material, they can become brittle with age and must be used judiciously by the artist. It’s worth experimenting with alkyd resins, especially when it’s important to speed up drying time. Just be careful to use them safely, correctly and sparingly.

Note on Comparing Food Grade to Artist Grade Oil

Last week, I forgot to mention that it’s best to use products that are made and sold for art production. An artist friend pointed this out to me and I thought I would pass this on. You should always use artist grade dryer oils when painting, since they have a longer shelf life than food grade oil, are of superior quality and there’s less of a chance of them going rancid. Artist’s linseed oil’s long shelf life is due to Alkali refinement (a ‘washing’ process) that removes most of the free fatty acids, mucilage and other impurities that can lead to rapid spoilage. How prone a particular oil is to going rancid is due to fatty acid composition. Flax oil has a shorter shelf life than safflower oil, due to higher percentage of fatty acids. Drying oils are mostly made up of unsaturated fatty acids (e.g. linolenic and linoleic acids). These fatty acids are the components that produce an “off” smell through oxidation, and also what makes oil paint dry.

Organic Binders

Pigments are ground and mixed with a drying oil, commonly known as a vehicle or binder. They are called binders because they suspend the pigment in the oil, making it easy to apply the paint on the painting surface. Eventually, the oil dries as it absorbs oxygen, sealing the pigment to the surface. There are several types of organic binders used in painting, but I will review the most common of them. These include linseed, stand, sun-refined or sun-bleached, poppy seed, walnut and safflower oils.

Linseed Oil

The most commonly used binder and oil medium is linseed oil. Linseed oil is made by pressing the ripe seeds of the flax plant. There are two types of linseed oil, hot pressed and cold pressed. Inexpensive linseed oil is made by applying extreme pressure and heat. After hot pressing, any oil left in the seeds is extracted using solvents. The solvent is evaporated, the remaining oil is then added to the hot-pressed oil which undergoes a refining process. Cold-pressed linseed oil is made with some pressure, but no heat. It is the purest form of linseed oil because it has superior binding ability and is less likely to become brittle with age compared to hot-pressed oil. Refined linseed oil is oil refined with sulfuric acid and water, removing more of the impurities. It does not bind as well as cold pressed.

Linseed oil is used as both a binder and as a painting medium. It is usually the preferred choice for clear painting oils because of its durability. Manufacturers usually base their binder on linseed oil and may mix in or substitute poppyseed oil according to their preference. Though linseed oil dries quickly at first, the complete drying process takes several years. As it ages, linseed oil dries into a tough, leather-like film that hardens and becomes more transparent with age.

Stand Oil

Stand oil is made by heating linseed oil to 525-575° F and holding that temperature for a number of hours. A molecular change occurs, though it doesn’t change the physical properties of the oil. Stand oil is a heavy oil, similar in consistency of honey. It is usually mixed with several parts of turpentine, resulting in a paler color than other linseed oils. Artists prefer stand oil mixed with thinners as a glazing medium, a paint mixing medium, and with varnishes. Because of its unique ability to dry to a smooth, enamel-like film free of brush strokes, it is a superior binder for glazing. And, mixed with other ingredients, the resulting medium ages well and is nearly non-yellowing.

Sun-Refined or Sun-Bleached Oil

Sun-refined or sun-bleached oil is made by combining oil with an equal amount of water and then exposing it to sunlight and limited air exposure for several weeks. At the end of this period, the impurities will settle to the bottom and the oil is filtered and separated from the water. The result is a thicker, more viscous oil, which hampers its binding abilities, but speeds up drying time. This type of oil is more suitable for a clear varnish, glaze, and painting medium. However, it is more prone to yellowing than cold-pressed and refined oils. 

Poppyseed Oil

Poppyseed oil is a colorless to straw-colored oil pressed from the poppy seed. It is most often used as a binder mixed with whites and pale colors as it is less prone to yellowing than linseed oil. However, compared with linseed oil, it dries much slower. The film is spongy and has a tendency to crack, especially when the pigment is layered. Poppyseed oil is most often used by artists in direct or alla prima single layer painting.

Walnut Oil

Walnut oil is derived from the stale kernels of the common or English walnut. The film of walnut oil when dry is stronger than Poppy oil (though still not as strong as linseed) which makes it a better oil to use in the initial layers of paint. It is a great oil to use when painting detail and it has a similar drying time to linseed oil. Though it dries as quickly as linseed oil, it has a tendency to grow rancid with storage and is not recommended as a paint medium.

Safflower Oil

Safflower Oil is also used to make whites in some brands because it is bright and clean with less tendency to yellow than linseed oil. It takes 2-3 days longer to dry than linseed so is recommended only for use in the final layers of a painting.

More on Binders

Linseed, poppyseed, walnut and safflower oils may be mixed with one another. You can find binders mentioned here at most art supply stores. You should experiment with them, but keep in mind the properties of each and their shortcomings.

For more information about binders, check out The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques by Ralph Mayer.

Next:

I will talk about the different mediums available for painters.

What is Oil Paint?

We buy a tube of oil paint, untwist the cap and put a small pile of it on our palettes without a second thought as to what goes into it. But it wasn't always this easy.

In Southern Europe, early man mixed animal fats with earth and stain to form the very first oil paints and applied them to grotto walls. During the 15th century, Belgian painter Jan van Eyck, mixed linseed oil and oil from nuts with diverse colors.

Later, artists would purchase the dry lumps of color, much of it in rock form, and grind it into powder before adding oil. Soon after, vendors sold the powdered pigments and oils so the artist was able to mix their own. In the late 1800s, paint became available in tubes, a convenience for artists who painted en plein air.

Today, oil paint is composed of dry oil pigments ground in a natural drying oil such as linseed. They usually include additives such as plasticizers, driers and wax to improve flexibility and make them consistent in texture and drying speed. Some brands of paint are allowed to age and then additional pigments are added to achieve consistency.

Grades of Paint

There are two grades of paint:

• Professional Artist Quality
• Student Grade

Professional or Artist Grade offers larger range of colors and have the best color strength: Have high concentration of pigment that is finely ground with the best quality oils. As a result, the colors are brighter and have more covering strength on the canvas. They are also the most expensive of the oil paint choices.

They are commonly cataloged into six series by rarity and value, Series 1 (or A) being the most plentiful and least expensive, and Series 6 (or F) being the rarest and most expensive. Professional grade paint brands include:

• Rembrandt
• Schmincke Mussini Oils
• Holbein
• Blockx
• Old Holland
• Sennelier
• Williamsburg
• Daniel Smith
• Grumbacher Pre-tested
• Michael Harding
• Utrecht
• M. Graham

Student Grade oil paint has limited colors and is made in large batches.

Student Grade oil paint tends to use more inert fillers such as chalk and less pure pigment. The result is less vivid colors, less tinting strength and less colorful effect overall. Student grade cadmium colors are sometimes called “hues.” Student grade paint brands include:

• Winton
• Grumbacher Academy
• Bob Ross
• Daler Rowney Georgian
• Windsor Newton Artist’s Oil Color (Pro/Student)
• Gamblin 1980
• Van Gogh
• Blick Studio

Drying time

The time it takes for a color to dry depends on the amount and type of oil added to the pigment and the color. Generally, earth colors dry the fastest. Cadmium colors, alizarin crimson, blacks and white dry the slowest.

Brands

Colors of the same name from different manufacturers will vary in color, cost, consistency, permanence, and drying rates.

Blind Contour Drawing

Contour drawing was first taught at the Art Student’s League in New York by Kimon Nicolaïdes in the 1920s and 30s. He used it and other exercises as a way to train his students to observe their subjects more closely. His methods are still being taught in art schools today.

Blind contour drawing involves carefully observing the outline and shapes of a subject while slowly drawing its contours in a continuous line without looking at the paper. By doing so, you are forced to draw what you actually see instead of what you think you see.

The Secret of Good Artwork

Let’s take a moment to talk about what it takes to produce good art. Many of you began studying art at an early age, maybe you took a class in high school or college, but later quit to get a job that pays well for as we all know, it’s tough to make a living as an artist. Or, perhaps you were busy raising a family and didn’t have time to pursue it.

Like a lot of people, I waited a few years, but I always knew I’d return to painting someday. Twenty-odd years ago, I began taking courses and began to draw and paint a lot. Over the last few years, I’ve had people ask me, “How long did it take you to paint that?” And I would tell them, “About twenty years.” Of course, they would frown and say, “Okay, but right now, how long did it take?” The thing is, there’s no way to convince someone who doesn’t understand that creating a pleasing piece of artwork didn’t just happen when I first picked up a brush. I have a lot of paintings that never saw the inside of a frame, and some that shouldn’t have. It took me more than twenty years and more than three hundred paintings to learn how to paint the way that I do. And I’ll never stop learning. In another five or ten years, my style will probably change and the same picture would look completely different.

Slash by Marc R. Hanson.

During those twenty years, I studied with some of the best painters in the East, including Don Demers, Stapleton Kearns, Mark R. Hanson, Richard Schmid and Albert Handel. The reason that I chose these artists is that I admired their style of painting and I wanted to learn how they accomplished their work by watching and listening.

20010637_Big by Stapleton Kearns.

After a few workshops, I noticed that there was a pattern to their information, even though they each had their own individual style. Just about all of them said that, with some knowledge, you will mostly learn by producing a lot of work. The more you do, the better your art will be.

I may have discarded some of this class information, or replaced it with something else, but a great deal of it has stayed with me over the years, and I find myself repeating their instructions to myself as I go about creating art. I highly recommend taking workshops or classes with those artists that you admire, pay close attention to what they say, read and reread their books, and buy their videos. Watching demonstrations is a great way to understand their process, and if you can do it in person, that’s even better. It is much harder to learn on your own. And don’t expect to remember everything in the beginning. There’s a lot to think about.

The Wisdom of Ira Glass

Ira Glass is the host and executive producer of the popular National Public Radio show, This American Life. Each week, This American Life is broadcast to more than 1.7 million listeners across 500 different radio stations. But it wasn’t always this way.

Glass talks about the process of learning creative work very eloquently:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners. I wish someone had told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years, you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past this phase; they quit. Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work, they went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know that it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is DO A LOT OF WORK. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or month, you are going to finish one [story]. It’s only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just got to fight your way through that.”

Read more about Ira Glass...

Consider Yourself Challenged!

Okay, I've heard from a few of you, but I'd like to hear from those who have kept silent while enjoying my emails. So, what are you waiting for? If you've been drawing, painting, doodling, etching, coloring with crayons, sewing, knitting, embroidering, sculpting, making origami or any other type of creative art, send me a photo. Send your photos to pmeglio99@gmail.com and I will post them in my next challenge email.

Blind Contour Drawing

Contour drawing was first taught at the Art Student’s League in New York by Kimon Nicolaïdes in the 1920s and 30s. He used it and other exercises as a way to train his students to observe their subjects more closely. His methods are still being taught in art schools today. 

Blind contour drawing involves carefully observing the outline and shapes of a subject while slowly drawing its contours in a continuous line without looking at the paper. By doing so, you are forced to draw what you actually see instead of what you think you see.
Blind Contour Drawing Exercise

You should definitely try this! If you do, please send me a photo of your results, including a photo of your subject. Let me know what thoughts are running through your mind and your observations as you move your pen/pencil around the page.

For this exercise, you will need the following:

• A pen or drawing pencil
• A drawing pad
• A timer
• A simple subject. I suggest your hand, a shoe, or a grouping of fruit. Anything fairly simple will do.

1. Place your subject at a 90 - 180-degree angle away from your forward drawing position, to the left if you are right-handed, or the right if you are left-handed. You need to be looking away from your paper.
2. Set your timer for ten minutes.
3. Set your pen/pencil on a point on the pad and look at one area in your subject.
4. Begin drawing, don’t look at your drawing pad and don’t lift the pen/pencil from the pad.
5. Go slowly. As your eyes follow the line of your subject one millimeter at a time, your pen/pencil will move at the same slow speed.
6. Follow the outline and inner lines of your subject, including the details within the subject, changing direction, without lifting your pen/pencil. Try to follow the lines as if you were actually touching the object with your finger. Feel the item as it curves here, depresses there, and as it twists and turns.
7. Do this without stopping until the timer goes off.

When you look at your picture, it will look like a crazy jumble of lines, but if you look closely, you will see an interesting pattern, one that includes a lot of details that you may not have realized if you had not learned to see it.

Instead of provoking anxiety, blind contour drawing is meant to help you practice your observation skills. If you approach the technique with patience, it can even be a calming exercise. Look at it as a sort of exercise in meditation. The pen goes down on the page and your eye goes to a specific point in your subject and your eye and the pen move in sync.

There’s just something about moving that slowly and that focused that makes you empty your brain of everything else. You will begin to see things differently and your skills in seeing and drawing will improve.

My effort here to do a blind contour drawing. I admit I had trouble doing this very slow and ended up redrawing the images of the carrots, so there are two sets here. I used a Pentel pen, Doing this is a great way to slow down your eyes and check shapes and relationships.

According to Nicolaïdes, “Because pictures are meant to be seen, too much emphasis (and too much dependence) is apt to be placed upon seeing. Actually, we see through the eyes, rather than with them. It is necessary to test everything you see with what you discover through the other senses – hearing, taste, smell, and touch – and their accumulated experience. If you attempt to rely on eyes alone, they can sometimes actually mislead you.”

You can read about this and a series of other drawing exercises created by Kimon Nicolaïdes in his 1941 book The Natural Way to Draw: A Working plan for Art Study.

Urban Sketching

I enjoy sketching, especially when I have a long wait, like at a doctor’s office, jury duty selection (not when the judge is in the room!), or I’m on vacation, at the beach, or at an outdoor concert. It’s fun, and you can use any type of medium, of course, the more portable the better. This type of informal sketching is commonly known as Urban Sketching.

  

Urban sketching sounds like you would be sketching city landscapes, but it really encompasses more than just high rises and busy streets. Urban sketching is the act of drawing while on location in areas that you live in or are traveling to.

Many artists through the years have practiced some sort of Urban Sketching. Some museums even display sketchbooks, including those by Leonardo DaVinci, Michelangelo, William Turner, John Singer Sargent, and Eugene Delacroix for example.

Sketchbooks often serve a purpose other than for pleasure. Artists would work out ideas for larger works, sometimes doing several sketches of subjects from different angles and with different combinations. Most famous artists carried some sort of sketchbook with them at all times, drawing and making notes. The sketchbook became a type of picture diary.

You can draw in almost any medium. I happen to love using Faber Castell Pitt artist pens, which are like fine-tipped markers and are easy to use, clean and very portable. They come in a huge assortment of colors and are a blast to use.

I love to go to the summer free outdoor concerts and draw the musicians and the audience. I draw quickly and keep it simple with only a few details.

 
 

                     

I also use micro ink pens for line work. They come in different colors and different size nibs.

You can sketch at your local farmer’s market, museums, beaches, churches, picnics, parks –you name it, you can sketch it! It’s a great way to document the world you live in.

  

I have a watercolor sketchbook as well. It has a special paper made to absorb liquid. With a small watercolor kit, it’s a great way to do a study or capture a moment in time. And, I just discovered watercolor pencils, which are great fun and are even easier to carry. You can draw the color on the page and then use a water brush to wet the color and blend, just as you would a paint brush. 

   It doesn’t matter how good a sketcher you are. The beauty of urban sketching artwork is the informality of it. You can sketch anything, anywhere, and you don’t need to produce a finished design. You will find that your drawing accuracy will improve with practice, and so will the way that you look at things. 

 

I have several types of sketch pads in a variety of sizes, but mostly I use a soft cover moleskin sketch book, size 5”x 8” for drawing, and a hard cover moleskin, size 5” x 8” made for watercolor. The small size fits into a purse or my carry bag with my box of pens.


A great site that promotes Urban Sketching is Urban Sketchers, “an international nonprofit dedicated to fostering a global community of artists who practice on-location drawing.” The group maintains a network of blogs and online groups where urban sketchers can share their drawings and stories and interact with one another.

Next

I will share some artwork sent to me from several of you. There is some amazing work being done out there.

Class Schedules

There's no update on class schedules. For now, you can view my scheduled classes on my website, though things may change as we get closer to fall.
Stay safe and be well.

Consider Yourself Challenged! 

I know that you have been doing something fun and creative while you sip wine coolers or ice-cold beer during these warm spring days. If you've been drawing, painting, doodling, etching, coloring with crayons, sewing, knitting, embroidering, sculpting, making origami or any other type of creative art, send me a photo. You have one more week to think about it and create something. Send your photos to pmeglio99@gmail.com and I will post them in my next email.  

Tell Me What You'd Like Me to Cover

I hope you enjoyed this session of Urban Sketching. Feel free to share with others.
What would you like to see or hear more about? Which of the instructions did you enjoy the most?
Email me: pmeglio99@gmail.com or just hit reply.

Color and Reflected Light

COLOR, it’s everywhere and as long as we can see, we all experience it from the moment we open our eyes. They say that the human eye can detect around ten million hues. When we paint, we all strive to capture a small percentage of it, and often get frustrated in the process. We squeeze out luscious piles of color onto our palette in anticipation of capturing the beauty of a subject with it. Sometimes, we hit the colors on the mark. Other times, we get frustrated as we struggle through a painting when no matter what we do, we can’t seem to find the right mix. And, to make things worse, it’s not just local color, but also reflected color and the temperature of the light that we need to take into account when deciding on a shade. 

Color Choices

So, what is it about color and our color preferences that excite us? Color evokes strong emotional responses in all of us, but not necessarily the same types of responses. Blue may mean calmness and relaxation with visions of the ocean or a beautiful lake to one person, while denoting sadness to another. Depending on our life experiences, our preference for color can be psychological. For example, white might mean pleasantly clean and sterile to some who feel comfortable with a clean antiseptic environment, but cold and icy like a chilly winter day to others. Cultural traditions also influence our preference to color. If you look at color in clothing, for example, you may find that some of the cultures closest to the equator where weather is warmest tend to wear very strong, bright colors, while those in much colder climates tend to wear more subdued neutral colors.

Local and Relative Color

light creates the local color or colors of an object because each object possesses certain chemical properties or qualities that absorb some rays and reflect others How much an object absorbs and reflects determines the color of an object. However, we cannot go by local color alone. As artists, we need to put away our preconceptions about color and look at the relativity of color, i.e., the relationship of color to its surroundings. Changes to color happen when the light source changes, for example, when a sunny day (warm light) turns into a cloudy one (cool light), or when other colors that surround a subject change.

The Influence of Surrounding Colors

A subject’s colors are directly influenced by the color of objects that surround it. This color is possible because of reflected light. Reflected light helps to model form and gives variety to our shadows. A white building may take on the color of the bushes below and around it, because the light from the sky will bounce off of these objects and project on the surrounding objects.

The color of the Wadsworth Mansion in this painting was not pure white, though I’m pretty sure that if you asked the workers who painted the building what color they used, it would be some variation of white, such as titanium. The day that I painted it, the trees and flowering bushes around it projected a warm orange glow upward that originated from the sunlight that was in front of me, slightly to the left and somewhat high in the sky. There was very little direct light on the front of the building.

Reflections and Adjacent Objects

In the still life, the warm yellow of the lemon was reflected onto the cool bluish white surface, and the red skin of the apple and the peel of the orange reflect onto the normally white dish near the fruit as well as onto the fruit adjacent to them. 

Color Relationships

The six color squares are a good demonstration of the influence of surrounding colors. The orange color in the center is exactly the same for all six squares, yet depending on the color that surrounds the orange, the orange square appears to be a different shade. Note also that the stronger the color that surrounds the orange, the more it influences the perception of the orange hue. 

This is one example of how color values can draw attention to an object or provide a more subtle color shift. One color can become darker, lighter, warmer or cooler in relation to another color. When painting, try to relate and compare all of the colors in your composition to one another. Ask yourself, Is one color lighter or darker than the other? Is one color warmer or cooler than the other?

Next

I’m going to share my moleskin and small sketchbook sketches of people and places that I do for fun and practice. I'll talk about the types of media that I use when doing quick sketches.

Drawing Simplified, Part II: Shadows and Form

One of the basic foundations of a good drawing or painting, besides rendering the proper shape, is good form. Form turns a two-dimensional object into a three-dimensional object, and gives interest to a picture. All objects have form, some more subtle than others, depending on the light source. Shadows provide form to objects and are denoted in values. The number of values (the dark and lightness) to a form depends on the light source, how close it is and how strong it is.

Shadows

Shadows provide dimension to an object. The shadow shape is the most discernable shape of value of an object. It is opposite the light source and reveals both the form (a solid shape with volume) and plane (a flattened area of a form) of an object. 

Shadow Edges

Depending on the object, the edges of a shadow can be either sharp or soft. Observing an angular or planed object, as one plane meets another and turns away from the light, the shadow edges are sharp. For a curved object, the shadow edge is soft with a gradual shift in tone. Distance also plays a part in the edges of a shadow. If the light source is close to the object, the cast shadow is softer on the edges. As you pull the light away from an object, the cast shadow is longer and has sharper edges.

Dimension

The angle of light will affect the solidity or volume of an object. If the light is directly in front of or behind an object, the shadows on the object are not as distinct and the shape flattens. Turn the light so that it comes from the upper left or right, however, and you will see a three-dimensional view of the object, with a wider range of values. 

Cast Shadows

A cast shadow occurs when an object blocks the light and casts a shadow on a surface. It is usually a darker shadow than the shadows on the object. Changing the level of light will change the length of the cast shadows. The lower the light on the object, the longer the cast shadow. In this case, care should be taken that the shadow doesn’t become the focus of the picture, rather than the object itself. 

chiaroscuro

A term used to describe the use of light and shade in a painting or drawing, particularly when strong contrast is employed. From the Italian for light (chiaro) and shade (oscuro).

Next

Reflections and its effect on an object’s color and light.