There are some best practices to ensure your paintings will be successful. I have to admit that to my own detriment, I have not always followed them, but they are a good guide to have:
- Know the colour wheel and which colors are complementary to each other:
- Notice Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary colors.
- There are three Primary Colors to start.
- The Secondary Colors are a combination of two Primary Colors.
- Tertiary is combining a Primary Color with a Secondary Color.
- Do small value sketch to work out values and composition:
- A painting that has a good range of color value (lights, mid-tones, and darks) has more visual appeal.
- A reference photo can be turned into a greyscale to see what range of values exist.
- A value sketch gives you the chance to improve values and composition.
- Have a focal point of interest:
- Some say there doesn’t necessarily have to be one but I disagree.
- A focal point can be an object that the eye goes to, or a path around the art, or any area that stands out by color, value, size and so on.
- It is some area of the painting that stands apart from the rest.
- Get to know which colours are pure pigments and which are pre-mixed:
- I don’t use many premixed colors, but if I do then I often add another color to change it.
- Pure pigments are more vivid and clean.
- Use linear and atmospheric perspective to create depth:
- To avoid having flat looking art, create depth by having objects in the background smaller and less detailed and paler (faded) in color.
- Clouds at the top of the painting are larger than the ones below which creates depth.
- A road, fence, poles getting narrower as it recedes into the painting creates depth.
- Keep notes of your color mixing recipes:
- This is one thing I have not done so I am often frustrated that I can’t remember how I arrived at a certain color.
- Edit your source image by excluding elements that don’t contribute to the composition:
- Planning your painting well will ensure success. Another fault of mine hence many failed projects and wasted time.
- Simplify the elements of the composition by reducing them to geometric shapes:
- Do not try to recreate a tree from nature. The most interesting art pieces are those where objects are just generic shapes with color nuances that give it life.
- Use contrast to create a sense of drama:
- Light against dark, large against small, hard edges and then soft edges, shadow against light are some examples.
In the first painting where I followed best practices. In teach case I did not try to recreate nature. The winter painting has a background that only suggests trees, but it catches the sunlight yet still stays in the background minus a lot of detail to distract from the foreground.
Painting number 2 is a lot of shapes but, not any particular plant or tree suggesting a mass of greenery.
The sunset trees anchor the painting but shows off the sky. I did not spend a lot of time on the trees, yet they look real.
The forth painting is again simplified shapes, lights against dark. All of these paintings show well as black and white, and this is the test to see proper values.
