Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium (30 page)
Read Watercolor Painting: A Comprehensive Approach to Mastering the Medium Online
Authors: Tom Hoffmann
SECTIONS
Putting a plain piece of paper over part of the painting will often reveal where the problem lies. If the uncovered area looks fine, or better, the imbalance is probably in the covered part. See if you can use this device to reveal issues of both form and content. Cover a section and assess the feeling of balance, or color distribution—both formal qualities. Then consider how the same cropping affects the illusion of space—a content concern.
TOM HOFFMANN,
NEW SNOW,
2010
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES HOT PRESS PAPER
21 × 22 INCHES (53 × 56 CM)
This picture always seemed a little heavy on the left. The foreground trees congregate on that side, and the background hill has many more trees on the left side than the right.
As soon as I flipped a digital version of the image I could see that the balance would have been improved by having either the trees or the bushes moved to the right. The shapes on the hill would then have offset the ones in the foreground.
Now I really wanted to see how it would have looked, so I manipulated the digital file, giving the image a half twist. With the foreground trees pushed over to the right the overall balance was greatly improved. Oh well …
Reversing the entire
composition helps you see the painting with fresh eyes.
Flipping a digital version does the same thing. Simply turning the picture upside down offers the benefit of abstracting the scene, which frees you from the dictates of content. The detachment you achieve by means of these simple acts allows you to weigh the relative dominance of form and content. Ideally, you will be able to adjust that balance to your complete satisfaction.
CENTER OF INTEREST—OR NOT
Some rules are so persistent they take on the aura of gospel. The idea that every picture must have a clear center of interest looms menacingly over all of us puny painters. Granted, having a focal point is a really good idea, but does every picture need one? Must we always tell the viewer where to linger? In fact, the whole idea of the artist directing the viewer’s eye has always bothered me a little. When I read an analysis of a painting that describes the “eye path,” I’m never sure that’s where my eye has traveled.
We are all used to looking at the world in a broad way from time to time. It is possible, for example, to take in the entirety of Niagara Falls as a vast phenomenon without focusing on just one spot. This same kind of gaze is just as appropriate for some paintings as it is for observing the real world. If you deliberately put a focal point in every picture, you will never learn the other ways of composing a scene.
The main job of a center of interest is to organize an otherwise busy surface. It offers the viewer a home base from which the relative subtleties of the rest of the page can be explored. Whether there is a consciously designed focal point or not, it is important not to pull the viewer’s attention in too many different directions. Allowing more than one center of interest is asking for trouble.
If you choose to have no focal point, therefore, it is best to keep the composition simple and avoid the conflict of too many insistent areas. The image below features only three major shapes. The center strip, with its saturated paint and hard edges, stands out against the soft-edged sky and the simply stated water. Instead of a single center of interest, a picture can offer the viewer an opportunity to stand where the artist was standing, allowing their eyes to go where they will. The viewpoint becomes the focal point.
TOM HOFFMANN,
SOMETIME,
2010
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES COLD PRESS PAPER
10 × 16 INCHES (25 × 41 CM)
Where is the center of interest in this scene? On the site, there was no one spot that drew the eye more than any other, but the scene still wanted to be painted. The simple “flag” composition (three horizontal bands) allows the viewer to take in the whole scene at a glance, so the image does not need to be held together by a focal point.
TOM HOFFMANN,
PINO SUAREZ, OAXACA,
2011
WATERCOLOR ON ARCHES COLD PRESS PAPER
22 × 39 INCHES (56 × 99 CM)
What started as the watercolor equivalent of practicing my scales went on for the whole morning. I had not painted this carefully for many years. It was surprisingly satisfying.
wish
to see onto our work. Although this leads to disappointment, it may not be entirely a waste of time. If we can convince ourselves that we have painted the picture we intended, we must have a sense of what that would be. Our job, then, is to get that vision to hold still long enough to use it for comparison. Ideally, as we progress from sketch to study and on to however many versions we need to make, we are bringing our intention into sharper focus. This chapter is designed to provide some tools for shortening the process.
DENTIFYING THE
Q
UALITIES OF A
G
OOD
T
EACHER
It takes practice to gain the detachment of an objective observer, but, over time, you can become your own best teacher. A good place to start may be to list what you consider the qualities of a good teacher. My list is below. What would you add?
Progress takes time. We all want to make great strides, but, realistically, you must expect some of them to be backwards.
Pay at least as much attention to your strengths as to your weaknesses.
Someone has to be willing to tell you to get another piece of paper and do it again.
Do not give up! (At least not until you have put in the darkest darks.)
Do not settle for less than your best. If you really mean to become a better painter, now is the time to do the work.
By all means, be a serious painter, but don’t take yourself too seriously. The whole business of putting little wet marks on fancy paper is pretty funny, really.
STABLISHING
W
HO
I
S IN
C
HARGE
We all benefit from time spent with a good teacher, and much of our learning comes from exposure to other painters. The benefits of being part of a community of artists are real and meaningful. But in the day-to-day practice of taking risks and assessing results, we must rely on our own awareness to keep us moving forward.
Who is in charge?
You know the answer.
What do you do when something feels not quite right with a painting? Do you have a way of getting some distance on the work? On a good day, I will stand back and look at the painting as if someone else had painted it, taking the time to question and discover what worked well and what did not. But if I am distracted by the need to see some immediate return for all the time I’ve put in, I’m more likely to launch right into a new version, hoping to get lucky.
This impatience often causes me to miss the obvious flaws and make the same mistakes in the next version, or to keep adding information until the painting is overloaded. It can also undermine my ability to see what is worth repeating. A painting that feels like a flop can be hard to even look at, let alone analyze, but it may not be as bad as you think. If you tend to want your failures out of your sight as soon as possible, you are missing a valuable opportunity. When you manage to forestall the embarrassment long enough to see what is really on the page, you may find that very little needs to be changed. Sometimes the whole problem may be a lack of emphasis in a certain spot that can be resolved with a single stroke.
SALLY CATALDO,
FLUID LANDSCAPE
, 2009
WATERCOLOR ON PAPER
16 × 12 INCHES (41 × 30 CM)
In this very personal interpretation, the artist has chosen to describe the feeling of the place rather than specific information. The individual leaves may have been asking to be painted, but they were not ultimately in charge.
