A study of Dutch composition

November 22, 2010

For example, look at the painting by Pieter de Hooch, a Dutch painter who lived from 1629 to 1683. This is a charming picture of seventeenth-century Dutch life. De Hooch wanted to convey the peace and domesticity of an ordinary Dutch household; the clothes people wore, the architecture of the house, the utensils that were [...]

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Composing on a Canvas

November 21, 2010

It will be seen from all this that when you look at nature, you will be looking at it with a different eye and from a different point of view. You will be looking at it more selectively. You will be choosing those elements that will be useful and effective on a canvas. And this [...]

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Creating abstractions

November 20, 2010

Nobody can create anything visual like a picture without prior visual experience. You cannot get something from nothing. Something visual must start you off. And it follows that it must come from nature. However imaginative our ideas are, they must have visual expression if we wish to paint them and so it is to nature [...]

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Picture Making continued

November 19, 2010

No, the only way in which to compete with nature is by a careful approach through the terms of your medium, letting your medium dictate the way. Where, then, does this dictating start? Well, in the first place, nature is not confined in her activities to a rectangle as we are. Nature is not static, [...]

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Picture Making

November 18, 2010

Making a picture is rather like making a watch. Before you can put one together, you have to know how to take one apart. You have to know what makes it tick. The same is true with a picture. What is so good about putting one together is that at the same time you are [...]

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Looking at Paintings

November 17, 2010

Accepting the need for crisp, separate strokes of color, you can try building up a still life with separate patches of color rather like a mosaic. You can smash the image if you like, but if you are acquiring the ability to recognize and put down the shapes you see, you needn’t do so. Build [...]

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Putting a Still Life Together Part 2

November 15, 2010

Also, because you are not bound to stick to either the real shape or the real tones of the objects, you will be less likely to feel inhibited or frustrated about the result. On the contrary, you will enjoy doing it and in the process, be learning about the nature of the objects you are [...]

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Putting the Still Life Together

November 14, 2010

First mix up a good neutral tone on your palette, a mustard yellow or an orangy pink, and make this much thinner than you did for the previous exercises. With this mixture draw in your broken bits and pieces (Fig. 32). Don’t be alarmed if your drawing goes awry. Remember the objects have been broken [...]

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Still Life Painting

November 13, 2010

Whether you have drawn or painted a still life before in watercolor or pastel, you will find that with oil painting a new set of problems will confront you, that of allying what you see to the problems of mixing the pigments and applying them. If you haven’t drawn or painted in watercolor it doesn’t [...]

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Painting Exercise – Mixtures With Lemon

November 12, 2010

For this exercise a sheet of paper, not more than 15 in. x 11 in. (Quarter Imperial) stained with a light umber wash of oil color is recommended. (This can be done by adding a little umber to some linseed oil and wiping it over the paper with a piece of rag. It isn’t necessary [...]

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