Compose" Shape Critique

Critique time
Where do I begin with my discussion about the Summer Fire painting? It seems I've gained a lot of knowledge since 2004! I find it very difficult to talk about shape without including value somewhere in the discussion, therefore I won't try to isolate them. My photo reference for this work is long gone and I can't squint at it or the real scene. I'm left with the image I created.

• My first big mistake was not having the distant island, sky and water as one large shape rather than three smaller shapes. That would mean painting the island in the same value as the sky and water and setting it back in the distance as it was in real life.
• The tree line with its jagged points provides a nice relief from the straight lines of water and island. They also serve to interlock with the shape above it (always a good thing). In terms of value they are possibly too dark because they advance rather than recede. I would lighten them to set them back. In his response to the previous post Don mentioned the tips of the trees on the right being too close to the horizon line (that kissing rule) and that the eye is driven to the tips by the movement of the paint below. It's a very valid point and one I agree with. A bit of change in shape is in order.
  
• The next large mass (shape) is the line of fireweed and the clump of grass to the left of it. The soft diagonal works well and creates a gentle sway of energy. I would work with the values in this shape and include the grass beneath it using the same value which would be a bit darker than at present. Kathy suggested that I vary the shape of the flowers more as the edges are all "active" and therefore dominant. I agree with this point.
• The lower right shape is much darker in value and works to balance the strong diagonals above it. I had a simple solution for keeping the viewer in the picture plane. - I darkened the left side and the foreground right side. A bit too obvious ! In my own defense I did have three areas of dark to move the eye around.
• I feel there's variety in the shapes : simple and complex, small, medium and large, lights and darks. A big drawback is the lack of passive areas. If the sky, island and water are painted as one shape with lighter values this will become a more passive area and a foil for the more active fireweed.
  

The greyscale tells the tale of my penchant to paint in a tight value spread. Even my darks are not that dark. I have painted like this since the beginning. I am able to see the most minute change is value and when I think I am being very adventurous, I'm really not. To this day I have to fight with myself to include both ends of the value scale.

The response to my last post provided a number of suggestions for checking the shapes and values in a painting. I'd like to include them all in this post so they don't get missed.

Look at a greyscale of the painting
Kathy at Katherine A. Cartwright Studio suggested converting my painting to a greyscale in Photoshop. My proficiency in Photoshop is almost nonexistent, but having a reason is a great motivator. It was as easy as Image, Mode, Greyscale. I was just patting myself on the back about my new found skill when Don sent a comment to explain how to do it. hwfarber also suggested previewing the grayscale picture in print preview using different sizes. If you don't have Photoshop or a similar program, you can scan a coloured photo of your painting as a grayscale and print it.

Reduce an image to black and white
One of the things Ann Buckner does after taking a photo and converting it to b&w is to put the contrast all the way up. This reduces it to black and white and gives a good idea of light/dark ratio, rather like a Notan. She learned this from Rhonda Carpenter.

Look at the work in a darkened room
Kathy also suggested a technique learned from Susan Webb Tregay. Take the painting into a very dimly lit room or closet with the door slightly ajar. That way, there isn't enough light to see the colors, but there is just enough light to see the values.

Look through your camera viewfinder
hwfarber suggested setting your digital camera on black and white and looking at your painting through the viewfinder( a techniques learned from a Caroline Jasper workshop).

Look at your work in a mirror
Don Michael Jr. suggested one way to get a different perspective of your shape structure and the overall quality of your composition is to look at it in a mirror. If you go into the room with the light off, get the painting situated, and then turn on the lights you get an instant "snapshot" in reverse which tells you volumes.

Use a reducing lens
"Another good tool is the reducing lens, which Renaissance artists used and is still sold today" recommended Kathy.

Use a red tinted value finder
I made mine from plain red glass from my husband's stained glass selection. You can also buy ready made ones here. The first time I was introduced to this I thought it was magic. You see everything in shades of red which makes it easier to spot the value relationships and massing of shapes. These work best for work when cool colours are predominant.

Compose: The answer is shape

"A painting built on a boring design is like a house built on sand, destined to fall apart." Dan McCaw.

There is no doubt that artists who understand and utilize their knowledge of shape create the most effective designs. When you look at a subject you want to paint you have to look past the details and see what lies before you in terms of shapes not objects. Squinting is your best option for decreasing the amount of detail perceived and reducing the subject to dark and light masses. Another approach is to step back far enough to see only the contours of what you are focused on.

The big shapes that you reduce your subject to are the backbone of a strong painting. Train your eye to see no more than 3 or 4 big shapes in the subject and hang on to these through the whole painting, especially when you start adding detail. Aim for variety in the shapes: large, medium and small, simple and complex, positive and negative, light and dark, active and passive.

Suppose your subject isn't co-operative and there are many discrete shapes, uninteresting shapes or irritating shapes. This is where you get to practice "artistic license". Tom Lynch in Watercolour Secrets: A master painter reveals his dynamic strategies for success suggests changing "bad" shapes by:

1) altering the shape slightly; this is an easy one and artists do it all the time

2) connecting one shape to another; this can be achieved by moving objects closer to each other or connecting them into one shape by using cast shadows; if you have several elements of almost similar value you can unify them into one larger shape later by softening the edges or painting them in similar values.

3) adding something to camouflage the shape or cutting it out; adding in new information to make an original shape more interesting or to bulk it up to increase the size is easy to do, but even easier and often more essential is cutting information. Simplify and eliminate clutter is my mantra.

4) abstracting or stylizing it. This is not one I've used much myself, but there are times when you can solve a problem by abstracting most of the formal information and letting the shape prevail.

Dan McCaw in A Proven Strategy for Creating Great Art recommends making quick thumbnails of the initial organization of shapes using white paper and a pencil for the dark/shadowed areas. Two values are all you need if you have a good structure of shapes. Keep changing different aspects of the shapes until you have a pleasing design . When you finally settle on your shapes it is then a good idea to develop at least a four value study- white, 2 mid values and dark. Assign one of the four values to each large mass of your painting. Value and shape are your most important tools to hold a painting together.

From personal experience it is no good to have a shape value sketch and not use it! It's meant to be a useful tool not an academic exercise. I know many artists who create beautifully rendered value sketches for their finished paintings. Every last detail is worked out. I can't go there. I did try, but I lost interest in the subject as a result. If I figure out the minimum with shapes and values (4) I can add the rest as I go along.


An additional element to using shapes to strengthen your design is the importance of interlocking shapes like puzzle pieces which is addressed in detail in How to see underlying shapes in a painting by Deborah Christensen Secor at Wet Cavas. This is a very comprehensive overview of all aspects of shape with excellent illustrations.


In my next post I will return to my previous landscape and consider the information from this post with what my readers have supplied to see how Summer Fire might be improved. Until then here is a grayscale of the painting. It tells quite a bit about the "bones" of the painting.

Compose: Critique to learn

There was a time when I created credible landscapes using good instincts and not a lot of knowledge. This work called "Summer Fire" created early in my career , was based on a view from my art teacher's house window. I love fireweed in summer because it creates such a blast of colour in the environment. I wanted to capture this energy in the painting.

Using your understanding of shapes and how they are used in composing, critique this composition. The next post will summarize what I have learned since I created this work and I will suggest how I think it could be improved.