This is the last in a series of six posts about an art class hosted by Teal Art Gallery.

Composition is what really ties a piece together, and for me, can separate the good art from the bad.  Composition really means the putting together of all of your elements in the most effective way; element defining its own space and the relationship to the rest of the painting.  The elements are those that we have discussed in these past five blogs, line, shape, depth, distance, color, and texture.  These five elements with the sixth element, composition, create the elements of design which I utilize in my everyday marketing, designs and art.

For this class we worked on putting together colors, textures, lines and shapes to create compositions.   We found these elements in magazines and then put them together and discussed how the compositions were or weren’t working.  We all started with pieces that were approximately eight by eleven inches (8×11).  Then we cut and ripped to make smaller and smaller compositions.

What makes a composition and what doesn’t were things we tried to apply to each collage.  Does the eye move successfully around the whole page?  Do the elements of design play an integral role in this process?  The most interesting part is looking to apply compositional rules to abstract pieces.   The result is that people are able to look at any kind of art, and be able to relate to something unfamiliar.

Looking at unfamiliar art through eyes that are familiar with the rules and ideas of the elements of design, is really when a person can cease to rely on what is familiar or popular with others, and observe art for themselves.  This is what I hope that this class has achieved.  Until next time,

This is the fifth in a series of six posts about an art class hosted by Teal Art Gallery.

Texture becomes an often ignored subject because it is  difficult to understand how and where it is used, and what is its importance.  Using texture has several main elements of importance.  Texture creates focal points, helps tie in parts of the art piece, creates contrast and interest, and makes things more tactile and real to the audience.  All of these can be used to make art more interesting and diverse.

Texture usually is medium specific, though when these rules are broken, some amazing bits or creativity are born.   The texture created by the materials naturally, like the scratchy, linear quality of calligraphy pens fits certain subject matters and textures.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, watercolor paint can be as soft and watery as the name implies.  These textures are the characteristics of the medium.  As a personal favor to me, please make the subject of your painting relate to your medium.

There are two meanings for texture in art and they can be used to mean the same thing.  The portrayal of texture is one side of texture.  This is the drawing or painting of bricks or leaves that have an inherent texture.  The other meaning is the physical use of mediums that develop a three dimensional texture of the piece of work.  Both of these definitions can be as subtle or dramatic as you can imagine.  They don’t just mean rough and dramatic, smooth and subtle is as much a texture.

Texture, like everything else, goes in and out of fashion.  This is something to keep in mind when making art.  You could want a really impressionist plein air piece,  but if you give it a smoother Vermeer texture, it’s going to lose some of its impressionistic character.  Mixing these intentions change the meaning of the piece and its context.

Though texture can be difficult to learn to incorporate, it can be part of truly diversifying styles and points of view.  Really working with different media, in different styles can be the only way to learn to use texture effectively.  Mistakes are going to happen as with every new thing you try, but I find that in art mistakes are the only way to really step out of your comfort zone and create something amazing.  Nothing helps creativity like a brave mistake.

This is the fourth in a series of six posts about an art class hosted by Teal Art Gallery.

Color is is practically a theme for life.  It adds richness, shows feelings, emphasizes, but given all these possibilities, it is also the most difficult element to harness and put to good use.  There are so many options.  What color do I put where, and how much, and why are all choices that artists have to make.  Today’s class focused on seeing color and applying it to still lifes.

First we started in black and white.  The goal is to include a full black (in the darkest place) and a full white (in the lightest) and try to fit the infinite numbers of  gray in between.  This creates the maximum depth in a piece.  One thing I want to point out is people tend to get stuck drawing the outline of the objects themselves when many times the object can be defined by the background.  If you want to draw the outline, draw it the color that it actually is.  For example, if one side of the bottle is bright white, don’t draw a black line there unless you are drawing the shading for the background.

Color is similar to the use of gray scale, it consists of dark colors, light colors and all medium colors in between.  In our examples, we showed how color defines the shape of the object.  In introducing the color wheel, we only talked about two things.  Firstly, warm colors come toward the viewer, and cool colors recede into the distance.   Secondly, complimentary (or opposite) colors compliment each other and make each color  richer when placed next to the other.  These colors may not be obvious in what your are drawing.  You must carefully choose your subject, and if need be liven up the colors to create these complimentary color values.

Color is much more unbelievable in its application than one might expect.  I brought in an example of an orange bell pepper sitting on a turquoise piece of paper.  Pure orange ended up being only a small part of the colors used.  The shadows, highlights and reflections made the orange bell pepper purple, green, red, yellow and light blue.  One of my favorite thoughts on this subject is: seeing is not believing, drawing is believing.  Rarely can someone believe that the solid orange bell pepper can have all of these colors in it even though they are looking at it with their own eyes.  What happens is the brain takes over with the knowledge that the object is orange, but that totally ignores the light and environment around the object.

Using color effectively comes with practice and patience.  This is one project that you can’t give up halfway through, it will just look funny until it’s finished.  Use your eyes and imagination, but not your smarts because they can sometimes get in the way.

This is the third in a series of six posts about an art class hosted by Teal Art Gallery.

Shapes in drawing and painting inevitably lead to concerns about space.  With the elements of perspective, negative space, and placement of the objects in the space, distance becomes instantly more important.  Having distance in a painting is one element makes painting interesting.  Depth allows the eye to wander around pieces, and not just over the top of an object, but also behind and along the sides.  In this class, we talked about several ways to make distance more pronounced in your drawings and paintings.

The first thing we talked about was atmosphere and focus.  When things recede into the distance, depending on your eyesight or altitude objects become fuzzy (sorry bad joke).  Basically, as objects become part of the background they stop relating as closely to the focal point.  They usually lose brightness of color, details, and textures.  The colors tend towards, white and black instead of the bright colors that jump out at the viewer.  In line and drawing, (as we practiced in class) lines become softer,  and lighter weight as they move into the distance.  The high contrast and detailed lines come to the forefront.  We also discussed that through these principles we can see depth in abstract paintings.  The painting below by Karen Barnett that shows the higher contrast colors closer to the front and the faded colors in the distance.

Next, we discussed the use of vertical and horizontal lines.  If one looks at a grid that had a fairly even spacing of horizontal and vertical lines (maybe like a plaid),  there is no depth.  If the lines vary in  spacing, it creates depth.  This can work to push focal points back to the horizon, or bring them forward to the viewer.  There is a quick example below.  Can you see when the lines are closer you are drawn there with your eye?

These horizontal and vertical lines are found in the upright or sideways nature of your subjects.  It is better not to have an even number of evenly spaced vertical and horizontal lines.  Like the plaid, it minimizes depth in the drawing.  Try to space out the horizontal lines and vertical lines so that they lead toward the focal point of the drawing.  These vertical and horizontal lines are usually intersected or connected by diagonal lines that draw our eyes from one line to another.  A picture lacking in these attributes, might leave your eye sitting on the focal point and not moving around to see the whole picture.

Finally, we talked bout size.  Sit down or stand still and find a place that you want to draw.  Does it have good numbers of vertical and horizontal lines?  Is your focal point NOT in the middle? (yes that’s the good)  Are there diagonal lines that move your eye around from line to line and shape to shape?  Sit/stand up straight, hold your arm out straight from your shoulder close one eye.  Measure how big a given object is in relation from the end of the pencil in your hand to where your thumb marks it.  Then from there see how big every thing else is.  Is the next object twice as tall but only half as wide?  Where does it sit in relation to the first object? Half-way up the side?

All of these elements are a lot to think about, but we will be using them the next few weeks to make better art!  The project.  Draw a scene, still life or anything inspiring that incorporates these elements.

This is the second in a series of six posts about an art class hosted by Teal Art Gallery.

Following the line class that showed the many varieties and ways to use line,  we tried using those lines to focus on the importance of shape.  There are several important elements that define shape.  The hard or softness of the shape is important, and is usually determined by the quality of the line around it.  The planes that create the shape are very important and how those planes work together.  Then, my personal favorite, the negative space between the shapes.

Shapes make up the surface of every object.  Everything from triangles to wonky tetrahedrons can be used as surface.  How can you be sure that this will work?  There are several ways.  Drawing or painting is the art of making something that is 3-d in to something that is 2-d.  So you can be sure that it will work even if you can’t see it at first.  One easy way to see shapes on an object is to photocopy a picture, and with a brightly colored pen trace those shapes.  Find every small oval, triangle and weird blob to show that all together these create that picture.  Another way to help see shapes is to close one eye.  Having both of your eyes open gives objects three dimensionality and perspective.  If you close one eye, it mostly eliminates the depth of the object.

We drew bottles that were painted white.  This allows the light and shadows that are made by the objects, to create very strong light and shadow.  These shapes made by the light, define the objects as much as drawing the outline.  We also had the bottles placed a little way apart so that there would be nice negative shapes.  Negative shapes integrate the background into the foreground of the painting and also just make the painting more interesting.  A good use of negative space ensures that no part of your painting or drawing will be boring.  It also helps composition.

Practicing breaking down an object into many drawable planes is an exercise in ‘seeing’  you really have to use your eyes and not your brain to see the proper shapes.  I did the home work for the shape class.  Below you can see my shapes of both the bottles and the shadow on them and the ones that they cast.  I also tried to create interesting negative spaces of different shapes and sizes between the each of the bottles and the edges.

This is the first in a series of six posts about an art class hosted by Teal Art Gallery.

Last Sunday I hosted my first of six art classes that center on the elements of design.  For anyone who was not able to come to class or is just interested, I thought I would rehash (heh, heh, English line pun) the class out on my blog.

Line is the most fundamental element of art.  It is what we were first taught to use in preschool art,  it is what was found on the earliest cave drawings.  Like most fundamental things, lines can be simple like stick figures or complex to show a huge range of textures, shapes, shadows, atmospheres, speeds and so on an so forth.  Line is one of the most undervalued members of the elements of design, but it defines things as complex as composition, shape and plane.

What makes a line paradoxically easy yet difficult?  Line is literally finding the essence of the thing you are drawing, and distilling it into a recognizable line.  Fortunately, people have seen most every object in art before and can put together two and two. Therefore, it is not essential that one draw a silhouette and all of the obvious things inside like the nose eyes and ears of a person.  In distilling this image in your head, you don’t need to draw the whole person. Only draw the absolutely defining moments.  Perhaps you should emphasize the nice smile wrinkles or perhaps the way the hair floats out from the head.  Drawing the whole person seems a bit unnecessary as everyone knows what people look like.

Well how is a line distilled?  A line can vary in thickness, density, hardness (straight edged) or speed (smooth or wavering).  These characteristics come from looking and using your eyes to find the important things that you would need to define the shape.  Different mediums create different lines.  Charcoal is usually a fairly soft line with a low density of pigments and a soft edge.  Calligraphy brushes (like the Chinese and Japanese use) range from wet, hard lines to dry, soft lines.  Lines can also be different variations in a color.  As with black, there is every tone of gray with which one could make a line.

Enough of the technical talk, lets get to exercises!  What are the rules?  Number one: no agonizing.  Agonizing will affect the quality of your line and slow it down or make it too dark.  Also, it is bad for blood pressure.  Number two: no sketching.  Sketching is the act of making short hairy lines.  The only reason to use hairy lines is if you are, in fact, drawing hair or perhaps grass.  Number three: no erasing.  Line drawing is not for the faint of heart.  Put your pen/ whatever down, and draw the bloody line.

Exercises:  Draw ten one minute drawings of anything that inspires your line senses.  Use a timer that beeps.  Focus on quality of line.  Try to distill what you are drawing until people can get the feel for it without seeing every detail.  Then move to a longer time, but remember, no agonizing, and don’t stop using line quickly like in the one minute drawings.

Homework due Sunday, 27, Draw two line drawings of anything that inspires you.  These drawings must use a variety of line, and inspire good composition. (basically, it has to fill up the whole page (you could use a smaller page) and it has to feel like it has depth because of the line.)

Georgia O'Keeffe's Winter Road

Ancient Chinese Landscape

What do blue and green make?

-Teal