ON ART:

The Analysis:
Before painting you should have a clear vision of the result.  To do that you must determine the following and keep all points in mind.

1. Which side of the subject is lightest or darkest?  Where is the light source coming from?
2. Is the light clear and sharp or diffused?  Just because you’ve got a bright source doesn’t mean that the edges of cast shadows and objects are sharp.  Reflected light bouncing of other local objects can greatly soften or strengthen the value objects in the reflected light.  Is there strong reflected light (like on sunny days) or not much reflected light like on cloudy days?
3. What is the focal point?  The main point if interest  How will you draw attention to it.  What will lead your eye to the focal point?  How will you diminish attention from other areas?  A good painting has one focal point, a lead in to it and every thing else is just supportive information.
4. Where are the lightest lights and the darkest darks?  This is called the value scale.  You will be working with values between the two.
5. Where are the sharpest edges, soft edges and completely lost edges?  Normally, the focal point will contain the sharpest edges although creating sharp edges other places can greatly increase the appeal of the painting but shouldn’t overwhelm the focal point.  Clouds and trees usually have soft edges as a general rule although a few well placed sharp edges here can actually help a painting.  One thing to note about photographs vs. painting from real life:  You will have to create the peripheral vision effect.  Your eye can only focus on one area at a time in real life.  Everything in your peripheral vision is less sharp, less clear.  Try looking at something.  Notice how your peripheral vision isn’t quite as clear and sharp.  A painting needs to have this effect painted in. The reason is because a painting is pretty much “all in focus” like a photograph, but what you want to create is what your eye would see in real life.  Also, you won’t see the peripheral vision effect in a photograph like you would in real life so you’ll have to create that if you’re working from photos.  Try not to work from photographs if you can.
6. Where are the strongest colors?
7. Is there an obvious color harmony?
8. How warm or cool is the light?  Usually cloudy days have cool light, sunny days warm light.  NOTE:  Shadows in a cool light are relatively warm.  Shadows in a warm light are relatively cool.
9. Where are the simple areas?  Where do you have to be especially careful?  Are there any drawing problems, foreshortening, perspective, distortions or areas of ambiguity or confusion?  How will you handle that.
10. If painting from real life, is your canvas out of the direct sunlight?  Always keep your canvas in shade by rotating your easel or setting up in a shady area.
11. What kind of technique are you going to use?  How do you want to put your paint on?  Heavy, thin, broken color?  It’s sometimes very effective if you leave some of the under painting wash as is without painting over it. What do you really need to paint?  Is there anything that you should omit or simplify to enhance the painting. 
12. What do you really need to paint?  Is there anything that you should omit or simplify to enhance the painting. 

Preparing your paints, brushes mediums:

Lay out your paints in a logical way.  I usually go from warm to cool

1. Opaques: Alizarin, reds, yellows, greens, blues.
2. Transparents: Alizarin, reds, yellows, greens, blues.
3. Put enough paint out so you don’t have to re load during the painting.
4. Pick brush sizes you’ll start with.  Normally, the bigger the canvas the bigger the brush.  Work from largest brushes in the beginning.  Use the largest brush you can to do what you want to do. 
5. Get paper towels ready and have a plastic trash bag.
6. Prepare your thinners and mediums.  I usually use mineral spirits and have a bottle of Gamblin Galkyd light ready.  Galkyd is a thinner that dries fairly fast and I just dribble a little over my mixed paints to start with.  It dries the initial wash quickly and keeps the vibrancy of the colors.

Preparing the drawing:
A loose, quick drawing on the canvas is better than a detailed drawing.  Make your lines very loose.  I sometimes use very thin paint to do my drawing but a warm chalk conte stick works well also (like a terra cotta color).  I don’t worry too much about getting the shapes exactly right.  It’s basically an indication of where I want to put things.  Just indicate where they go without drawing the whole thing out.  For instance, on buildings I indicate the roof lines loosely.  I don’t draw in doors, windows, etc.  One thing to note about doing line drawings is that lines make you subconsciously paint up to them sharply.  You don’t want to do that.  A painting works with masses and edge variation.  A line drawing doesn’t use masses and edges so don’t make your lines so distinct that it forces you to keep sharply within them.  That’s why a loose drawing is better than a very detailed drawing.  Don’t worry about painting up to lines.  You can refine the detail later.

Example of a preliminary sketch by Doug Higgins.  http://www.dhfa.net .  Doug also has a very good online book and is one of the best landscape painters in the U.S.


Don Finkeldei