BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 7

TIMED PAINTING: 37 MINUTES

This was nominally a one-hour painting exercise. We North Americans have trained our brains to stay focused for about an hour (although some would argue less.) Schools have one-hour classes, TV programs are an hour long (we won't talk about commercials), and so on. Keeping the time for this painting short will encourage sustained focus, as well as stopping us from fussing with the paintings (there won't be time).
Students selected their own subjects (though I encouraged simple ones). I chose to knife paint the tomato, since I had missed that exercise, lacking a tomato that day.
While we talked about the painting process, their brushwork choices, and the like, everyone laid out their paint and drew in the composition. I emphasized that deliberate brush strokes rather than frantic speed would be the key here. I promised not to interrupt them with suggestions, but let them keep their focus. Then I set the timer.
The results were fascinating. For me, the by-now familiar tomato allowed me to go to color with some confidence and less searching. Also, the choice of a knife was a speeding-up choice, since I could lay whole swaths of color at once. I was able to complete the tomato with about ten minutes to spare, and while there were things to mess with, I could easily have overworked the painting, so I stopped.
Student results were also interesting. About half the class forgot to key in their values, and while we had been focusing on brushwork for the entire quarter, forgetting value was a fatal oversight (in the same sense that Windows experiences fatal errors.) Those who had held to a strong value structure had successful paintings, even when significant details were missing.
Going back to their paintings, the students corrected the values and brought them to successful completion before the end of class... still an expeditious painting.
While painting quickly might not be a goal, as an exercise it encourages focus and attention to essentials.

BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 2

PALETTE KNIFE

I know, it doesn’t look like a tomato, but this is exercise two of the tomato series. The idea here is to break attachment to realism, and throw a wrench into the works. Palette knife is unfamiliar to almost all of us, and we struggle to produce something that looks like a tomato. (In my case, a rock, since I ran out of tomato photos.) The problem, as I see it, is in creating soft edges. I can either find some way to blend with the knife (not happening in my world), or create an intermediate color to soften the edges that need it. Because this rock has a lot of edge variety, it challenges my ability to express it. Later I try a tomato. Much better.

BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 6

STROKE COUNTING

This is an exercise in making every stroke count. The rules I gave myself were: Count every stroke. A stroke begins when I put the brush down, continues through any direction changes, and ends when I lift the brush. That old habit of repeatedly stroking in the same spot... won’t work for this. Some interesting things happened. I found myself slowing down, making long, thoughtful strokes. No automatic mark-making. Is that a good thing to continue in everyday painting? How much consciousness is useful in getting paint on the canvas? Even though every stroke involved prolonged decision making and slow execution, the painting was completed fairly quickly. Maybe a lot of the marks I usually make on a canvas are the equivalent of “ahem.”

BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 5

EXPRESSIVE BRUSHWORK

Building on the previous exercise, we now block in the main shapes, but then lay more expressive brushstrokes on top. Lately, I’ve become interested in the effects of stroke direction. Just pulling a long line of color makes a difference in the energy of a shape. I like solid strokes for solid objects, lines with movement for water. Here, the apple seemed solid to me, but I tried to add some roundness with the brushwork, and even a feel of growing in the stem.

BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 04

BLOCK-IN WITH GRADATIONS, VARIATIONS ON TOP

This is actually one of my two main approaches to plein air painting, so not so much of a stretch for me, but still a stretch for many of my students. In order to make this approach work, you need to be able to lay color on top of wet color cleanly. This you can do by lowering your brush angle so that you are pulling the brush parallel to the canvas, allowing the paint to pull out of the brush as it grips with the surface below, and keeping the bristles of the brush from digging into the still-wet layer of paint.

BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 3

COLOR SPOTS

The idea here is to see a color, mix it, and paint the spot of color in the right place. By carefully comparing and mixing colors, you gradually build up the impression of the object. Most artists who paint this way use a characteristic brush mark, so the painting breaks up into spots of color as you look at it closely, but from a distance, looks more real. It has an abstract quality, a breaking of the illusion of reality. Interestingly enough, the technique works best for me if I compare color mixes to one another on the palette rather than just on my painting. (Please excuse the fuzzy photo. I'll try to fix it later.)

BRUSHWORK EXERCISES, PART 1

TOMATOES
I have been interested in exploring different aspects of brushwork, particularly in encouraging my students and myself to use fewer brush strokes in their paintings, to lay down the paint thoughtfully, and have confidence in the mark. I did the exercises along with them, partly as a demo, partly to experience the exercises myself. This first example is painted with plenty of blending, as a sort of baseline. For most of my students, this is a comfortable way to paint. It has the familiarity of realism, which is an important stage in most painters’ development.

BOOK REVIEW: BOLD STROKES: DYNAMIC BRUSHWORK FOR OILS AND ACRYLICS

BOOK REVIEW: Bold Strokes: Dynamic Brushwork for Oils and Acrylics, by Mark Christopher Weber. North Light Books, 2009.

This new book by Mark Christopher Weber takes the highlights of BRUSHWORK ESSENTIALS, his previous publication, and goes one step further, with step-by-step painting exercises to teach you expressive brushwork. He begins with the basics: how to get paint on your brush. Then, with three main ways of loading the brush, he demonstrates the variety of strokes you can make. Once you have the basics down, you’re ready to tackle the paintings.

Weber takes a subject and walks you step by step through initial washes and expressive strokes laid on top. By going through these exercises, you can begin to get the feel of how to choose where to put your paint to make the most impact. You can learn how to vary the width of your stroke with pressure and with twisting the brush. You can practice the essential color notes and highlights to simply capture a subject. The illustrations make it very clear where to put the paint in the exercise paintings, but not as clear how to get it exactly there.

The painting demonstrations are in both acrylic and water-miscible oil, a nice bonus if you are having trouble finding books in this relatively new medium. Personally, I’d prefer some demos in traditional oils. If I could wish for anything, it would be that he’d spend more time demonstrating how to lay paint on top of wet paint, how to create gradations, and how to add color into already painted areas.

If you’re looking for a spur or need some guidance in creating your own signature brushwork, this book is worth playing with.