Composition for painting Plein air

From artist network's. YouTube

ArtistNetwork Johannesburg Vloothuis

Sample video from him "Painting cloudy skies - what you need to know" about 1ht50m long.

This is on YouTube.

The lower third of your composition should have no detail - that’s assuming that the area of focus is around the centre of the composition. You do not want to distract the eye by having sharp edges or details around the lower part or even around the sides - you do not want to distract the eye.

Design your painting to include two obviously different halves. Divide the painting down the middle - it is very boring if both halves of the painting resemble each other -

Ignore values from photos that are darker than a mid dark for daylight landscapes. Nothing should be darker than value seven on a grey scale from 1 to 10 If photographing take three different exposures - in that way you can see into the dark

In the shadows you should be able to call out the hue of that colour - it should be recognisable for example as a blue grey

The more brushwork you put in a painting the more clutter that’s in that painting - the less the viewer is going to enjoy being there because the brain of the viewer has to process all that visual information and make sense of it

The very fact that you reduce a 30 foot tree to the size of a painting makes it become pixelated like this

Below is the authors watercolour version. The brain will add in the necessary details

The eyes don’t see anything it’s the brain that sees it. The brain sees these trees on the left and accepts them as trees without detailed leaves. Too much detail distracts from the main message which is all about the light lower down.

Blur anything that’s moving in your painting people cars birds waterfalls et cetera

Add violets purple to your paintings - it adds spice!

Avoid hard edges in the background

Make a conscious effort to render 3-D forms as best you can

The number one compositional concept is this -

apply rollercoasters eye-movement and melodic lines as much as possible

Clouds, waves and branches can be used to lead the viewer to the focal point

Create graceful melodic lines/shapes for shadows

The principle of contrast in a landscape - mix hard edges going into soft edges going into hard edges- so in a tree there may be an area where there are hard edges - they should be accompanied by areas in the tree that are totally soft.

Also mix of transitional areas where you’re going from dark to light to dark

also cool too warm to cool

This painting is a very good example of all of the above

Vary colours every inch and a half or so on a 12 x 16“ painting

Reflected light should be seen in the shadows not in the highlights for example underneath clouds

Create two different corners top and bottom of your painting

When a dark shape meets a lighter area the value shift is very noticeable so in the painting soften that edge where it appears

Do not abruptly stop the eye Flow. Allow the visual movement to taper off gradually

Planning the area of shapes in the landscape

how much area for the sky - how much for vertical shapes as in conifer trees - how much for horizontal areas likes fields, Lakes

Which ever area has the most visual richness is the area that you give the most Space to

In the painting below the sky is very little interest. The. lake is similar not too much interest.

All of the interest is in the vertical shapes of the trees and the mountain

So we crop the picture and we end up with this which focusses on the vertical areas of the trees and mountains

Alternately we could devote great attention to the sky. If the sky is looking like this then you would devote more space to it

You can change the shape of mountains and trees in your picture - make the mountain bigger- make the tree smaller - in which case the mountain will look bigger

How do you assess whether a painting is finished or not?

1 flip the painting horizontally

2. reduce the size of the painting down to a small thumbnail

3. converted to black and white so that you can assess the value structure - you will also be able to see if your gradient structures are working - dark to light to dark to light et cetera

The reflections of dark areas in a tree are not as dark in the reflection.

The reflections of bright areas are darker

Your painting should almost be as interesting in black and white as in the coloured version.

****************************

Before and after ..... Photos lie!

Capture the emotion of the scene rather than whats in front of you.

Paint what you feel not what you see!