Questions–Answers - Feb 26

Q: Several artists recommend squinting, can you explain that?

A: Squinting is in fact proof that artists do not paint what they see, since squinting in
varying degrees changes the subject matter. Squinting lets you see the overall color
and value relationships of complex visual information; it also helps you see edges,
the hardest edges since these are the last to fade during squinting. The error is
painting the information seen through squinting, because this does not simplify the
information artistically, it merely smudges it altogether. It does not tell you what to
leave in, or leave out, and what to simplify, since this is artistic editing. The eyes and
their degree of focus do not have this capacity. So, squinting is a tool to let the artist
comprehend the overall relationships in a scene, in order to better paint what the
artist intends to, but to ‘paint what you see,’ or to squint etc., are merely devices for
the artist to better perceive the dominant mechanisms in a scene, such as value,
color and edges. This technique is mostly used to simplify the vast amount of values
into 3 main ones.
Q; How do horizon lines between the ocean and the sky fit into the idea of
abstract shapes, do we not make them straight?
A: In fact, the horizon line is slightly curved, not straight due to the curvature of the
Earth. But at a visual level it is implied to be straight. But this question goes back to
handling geometric shapes. Artists want to imply things like triangles, circles and
rectangles (in case of space or sky between the edge of the frame and the ocean in
the painting). You can play with softening edges here and there of the horizon,
fading some out in case there is a lot of atmosphere. This horizon line where the
ocean meets the sky in clear days is never a razor hard edge, but there is an edge
since at some point there has to be a tip off due to the curvature of the Earth. If we
must therefore paint it like that, make sure the eye can blur it in the places it does
not choose to see, and to appear hard where it does want to see. It has to fade in
the periphery of the eye in the same way the eye does this in Nature. This also
applies to buildings and signs. But since this is somewhat meticulous, artists avoid
this by using abstract shapes, and changing edges, which by definition will let the
eye move like it would in nature. Variety will always let the eye behave freely. We
can also offset these long horizontal lines by placing rocks, cliffs, the tip of a wave ,
and crashing foam to partially cover some of the line. Softening these edges can be
excused by it being muggy or foggy near the horizon.

Q: If I have a painting with three oranges, how would I deal with their
roundness, or with the colors, would they compete?
A: Shapewise, how things are is never an argument, since the concept of abstract
shapes is to suit the eye, while leaving the minimum for the mind to feel that what
it’s viewing is representational. Appealing to science is not an argument, since what
makes things look real, is not their exact perfectly rendered qualities to the eye, but
of their overall appearance, enough to make the mind believe, with the help of the
right context, that what it is looking at is something supposed to be real. Artists
modify the exact roundness of the oranges into a more implied roundness by making
the circular silhouette more interesting, through abstract shapes. Colorwise, three
bulbs of orange could compete, but while thinking of a painting as a sum of things,
the solution then seems to be a question of quantity. But this is left brain; the
solution would be more abstract, and so find a way to eliminate the competition
through representational means. For instance, putting a few in the shade would be a
representational excuse to darken one of the orange bulbs, just like massing them
altogether would form a large blob of orange, a mass, with a more interesting
contour, thus the viewer justifying it as seeing ‘three oranges placed together. If you
look at some top artists who don’t try to depict still life objects in hyper-realism you
will notice they slice out some of the monotonous curves in the round shape to make
it more interesting. You can say it even looks like they dropped a fruit and it bent the
round curve.
Q: What is a composition?
A: When we talk about imagery, it is all right brain, and when we talk about things,
their names and their meanings, we are talking left brain. A composition therefore
cannot be a sum of things, or that a composition is what you put where. This is a
mistake, since then we are then lead to solving problems based on things, their
quantity, refraining from changing their bothersome details, obeying the photo, not
editing, painting what is emotionally beautiful subjects, instead what is visually
beautiful etc. A composition is therefore an abstract value pattern or an arrangement
of value patterns, which precise or imprecise arrangements would appeal to be
representational to the eye (Representational art), or stay abstract (Abstract art).
Things look like real things on a canvas, because of the power of the mind, while to
the eye, it’s all the same. Hence compositions are abstract arrangements, and good
compositions have all the ‘rules’ that have been discussed, that turns mere ink blots,
into a good composition. A composition therefore depends primarily on value, not
color, because shapes depend on value, and shapes are the units of a composition.
Composition refers to everything that can be considered as designed in a painting.
Q: Do we outline shapes where things meet, or where contrasts meet?
A: Since shapes are recognizable only where value contrasts meet, we have to mark
them, and their contours, between value contrasts, not things, since this is left brain.
For instance, an onion, a clove of garlic and an egg appear to be different things to
the mind, as three things, because the mind through acculturation etc., has marked
imaginary borders between these. But if you mass them all in one pile, though the
mind will continue to label them as so, the eye will only pick up a mass of a light
value, a shape, and so the contour is established around this, where anything darker
or lighter meets it. Otherwise, if something of the same value borders it, it will
merge with it as a shape until something of a different value merges with it. Shapes
and values are not thing-dependant since many things can fall under the same value,
hence shape, while one thing can fall into several values or shapes, hence shading.
Q: What if I have a mountain, landmark, or specific type of tree, has a
symmetrical shape or too well implies a symmetrical shape, do I therefore
not paint this at all?
A: Yes you can paint anything because what makes something recognizable as being
this or that, does not depends on the ridges of the mountain being the exact ones, or
if all the branches of a tree are in the right place; you can cut some branches off a
tree in order to better hide any symmetry in a painting. The only exception could be
portraits, and even then some artists twinkle with things a bit, though not much
since the silhouette of faces by themselves always expresses a variety of line, shape,
angle etc. Besides, changing something here, unlike in the case of Nature, will
compromise the recognizability of that person in particular. You can always mold
things into more pleasing abstract shapes and still maintain the identity of things
when it comes to trees, mountains etc., no matter how particular certain shapes are
to a given landmark. The question is, how much can I change a certain shape,
making it more pleasing, before compromising the exact identity of this or that? This
is the guideline. It is in an incorrect notion to think that you have to represent nature
accurately with all of its forms. The moment you fit the macro world into a small area
you have created an artificial representation and as such there is no commitment to
represent things as they appear in the macro world.
Q: What is a tangent in painting?
A: Tangents are oddities like the ridge of distant trees meeting the very top of a
nearby tress, a rock ending at the exact height as the ocean horizon line etc. These
are things that can easily happen when composing, which can naturally happen in
Nature but will look terrible in a painting. For instance, If you are at a viewing
distance and see such tangents and cannot avoid them from your view point, you
make changes on the canvas,- another example of not painting what you see, to be
taken as a general approach, particularly when it comes to composition.
Q: What are the devices that make a focal point?
A: Any form of contrast occurring between different value, detail, color, edges,
texture, mass or size etc. that is more outstanding than the rest of the whole. There
is also false notion that every landscape painting has to have a focal point. We can
make an argument that this is not true because in nature when we gaze at a scene
we are not looking for a focal point, however the I is moving around. Therefore, if we
achieve moving the viewers’ eye around and into the depth of the painting we will be
simulating how his eye will see nature . The idea is to give the viewer the feeling of
the place.
Q: Since odd symmetrical or non-abstract shapes attract the eye, can this be
a device to be used as a focal point?
A: They eye will certainly gravitate there, but in the same was as a listener is
attracted to a note in a song which is flat, or simply off key. This will create a point
of focus, but it will be shining a flashlight on something unharmonious, like
underlying a mistake. Bad shapes are still bad shapes, and so we have to find other
ways to attract they eye without compromising the harmony of the whole, because in
a song, a bad note can ruin the whole thing, at the very least because the listener
will have the mere memory of it during the rest of the song, distracting the listener
from the better parts to come. A bad shape in a painting anywhere will set a domino
effect so that all the shapes fall apart.
Q: Can there be several focal points in a painting?
A: In a painting, focal points are occurring all the time, but what makes something a
focal point and something else more peripheral, is the degree in which one thing
overpowers another. There always has to be a hierarchy in points of interest in a
painting. There has to be the main violin playing, then the second, third and fourth
fiddle, playing their subjugated parts. In painting, we move the eye around the
canvas from the strongest focal point, to the second, and so on. Three focal points is
a good device to use, by starting off with the main area of interest, we skip to right
to view the next one in time, and then from there hopping in a circular fashion to the
next one, until we finally land again to the main one, and hence start the visual
process all over again. But this is achieved only if these are complementary, not
competitive. If you do place a second focal point in a painting try to avoid placing it
on top of the other one. Make one focal point predominant, in other words more
outstanding, and the other subordinate. Blue 199 I in going through your work your
questions for
Q: What is the difference between a focal point and focal area?
A: Focal point is a somewhat small area of the canvas dedicated to attracting the eye
the most, through value, color, edge contrast etc. A focal area is attracting to the
eye by default of size and mass, that no matter how bright a point is, the eye will
prefer looking at something bigger and less interesting, by virtue of eating so much
visual space. To do this, artists have to make the largest value mass the focal mass,
and the smaller the masses become, the less important they should feel. It is the
most natural way to preserve interest, because the eye is strained when asked to
focus on a too small area in a large space, a point. By letting the eye move around
more freely, it will naturally find an area of interest without strain, causing a more
contemplative and soothing feel. Think of the Grand Canyon, the whole thing is
amazing, but the eye throughout the whole visual process will tend to stay in one
area more than the rest on average, because of size. Focal points have the
disadvantage of being too small, and so they rely on dramatic contrasts to burden
the eye to look at one point at the expense of the rest. Focal areas are more
balanced and natural to the eye, since it allows the eye not to feel constricted, but to
do what it was made to do,- which is to move continuously. An easy way to
understand is that the focal area would be the plate and the cherry on the plate
would be the focal point, the painting being the table that hosts the plate with the
cherry.

Q: What is your opinion of the Zorn palette?

A: It is a great tool for color restriction, and ideal for still lifes and portraits. Anders
Zorn used this palette because he was attracted to certain types of colors, a certain
palette and throughout the years reduced it to that. But color is subjective, and one
palette may not work in the temperament of the other artist, and so the relevance of
this is that of a learning tool. It will give you all the flesh tones, and teach you a
restraint in cool colors, forcing a more tonal approach. For landscape, I do not think
it is possible to be used if you want to get representational, because blue is needed.
But it is a good tool for learning how to gray down greens, because if you have such
a limited access to creating strong greens, by the very limitation of the palette, you
will be forced to make grayer greens work by adjusting your color vision a bit more
to work with grays. We see then how cadmiums are in fact a luxury or to be used for
spicing up colors, not to be abused. We have to work from the gray to the colorful,
not viceversa, because most of Nature’s tones are already ¾ of the way to the gray.
Limited palettes such as the Zorn palette, will teach you how to work within an
economy of tones and colors, giving a wiser usage to stronger tones.

Questions answered by Kenneth Vloothuis. Proof read by Johannes

Questions-Answers - Feb 27
Q: Can you explain the concept of scumbling?
A: In oil paint artists tend to suggest in some areas things like fog, or thicker
atmosphere by glazing with dry paint over the dried painting, in areas that are
intended to be softened, lightened, or pushed back. It is also useful to correct slight
value inaccuracies in order to get away from repainting an area; if the value is a bit
darker than intended, in some cases a slight scumble can fix the problem in order to
lighten up the area. It has to be thinly applied, and scrubbed on.
Q: What can you say regarding wet on wet in oil paint?
A: Wet on wet is a technique used mainly when wet paint is pushed into the already
applied wet paint, so that both tones intermingle, creating neat effects like marbling
of color, and interesting edges ( among others). It is crucial for doing plein air work
or other alla prima sessions when things have to be captured on the spot. Sargent
took this to an even higher level, when even his studio paintings were desired by
himself to have a wet on wet look even if they were not painted in one sitting. He
always wanted to make his works feel like they were done in one sitting, even
though they weren’t. For this he would scrape off parts and start over, willingly, in
case he knew that certain parts were drying too quickly and thus were going to need
to be worked on further more in the wet on wet technique. He chose not to work
often times in wet on dry technique. He wants his edges to feel like they were
painted into on another, and not so much on top. Zorn did this a lot, unlike Sargent,
where you can see the dry brushed areas on his edges. Every artist must master this
technique regardless of the intended artistic approach.

Q: You seem to discourage having texture everywhere, but what about

textured surfaces or canvasses that were enhanced by the artist before
painting?
A: When artist apply media such as molding paste to a surface to enhance the
texture, it is only to break away with the mechanical look of the canvas, but the
texture is not enough to be called an impasto thickness, for that indeed would defeat
the purpose. Some artists apply it all over with considerable thickness, but the best
concern themselves with breaking the mechanical look of the canvas while leaving
room for the coming impasto to still show,- so there are still areas of relative
thickness. You can say that texture if done with reservation will make an area stand
out and look more 3d. For example if you have a grouping of tree in front of another
to create the illusion of separation of planes you can add the heavier texture to the
one in front. If one puts texture everywhere the more you add the more it cancels
out.
Q: Why is detail so difficult in leaving unnecessary detail out in a painting?
A: This is difficult mostly because of the left brain, because we know about a given
thing more than what our visual information tells us about it. What would seem fairly
complex or abstract for the eye to comprehend, like paper and books on a desk or a
crowd of people, the mind right away wants to have more knowledge than the eye
can give, by assuming and wanting to think that there are pens, markers, clips, etc,
on the desk, simply because they could be there, even though they aren’t. The mind
makes sense out of the chaotic and confusing information the eye gives us, because
our brain is lazy to register it all and so instead the mind believes it to be there. The
problem lies in people painting what is in this mental data base of information,
versus the shapes of value and color that are actually there. It is impossible for us to
perceive every little piece of detail in our everyday life, It would drive the mind nuts,
and so, if anything, it should be easier to leave details out, and let the mind fill in the
details, since our perception of the world is more contextual rather than detailed.
Detail is connected with what we know a given thing is used for, not how it is
actually perceived by the mind. If we look for detail in the subject instead of the
whole, we are starting to shift into the left brain, concerned with what it expects to
see in things. Even the most hyper realistic painter should understand this concept
and should be able to suggest information just as well as to render every shape that
is in the visual field. Some artists even insist in painting the detail that is not even in
the visual field, like grass, to stubbornly put in every blade, when the eye only sees
a patch of green!
Q: Will texture in the foreground by definition distract from the focal point?
A: No, it just adds dimension. If you want to indicate a focal point in your landscape
painting, if you make a predominant enough, the texture in the foreground will not
rob the glory from it.
Q: What is the difference between mass and abstract shape?
A: Both are abstract shapes, but mass is a shape that is large enough or vital
enough to the composition that it would show up in the thumbnail version of the
image. This mass is furthermore divided in abstract shapes that will explain detail
mostly visible at a normal viewing distance or closer. But when we are referring to
mass, we refer to the shapes seen from a far, at a thumbnail level. As an analogy,
you can say that the mass is the plate and the food that’s on the plate would be the
individual shapes. The mass will host the shapes.
Q: Is value the only way to express light and shadow?
A: Not at all, in fact some of the impressionists experimented using chroma and
temperature to distinguish shadows from light, many times keeping the same value
contrast, by just alternating the saturation and temperature of the color in the light.
In some cases this did not work, because the eye by its very nature needs to see
value contrasts, but these artists at least showed how little value contrast the eye
needs to see in order to make something distinguishable, making artists use the
minimum of value, and instead rely on other color dimensions such as temperature
and saturation or chroma. This is in fact the challenge of artists today, advocated by
Sargent himself, that the less we can use value to distinguish between light and
shadow, the better the painter we become. This is why Johannes and other expert
artists know to be very restrictive of dark compositional masses, unless these are
only used as accents, or as shapes in the composition that are the smallest in size, if
necessary at all, in order to keep the luminosity of the piece. Value has been
therefore been gradually outdated in the degree in which a painting has strong
colors.
Q: What can you tell me about water reflections?
A: A quick rule of thumb is:
Whatever is dark on dry land gets one value lighter in the water. Whatever is light on
dry land gets one value darker in the water. Avoid hard edges in the water. Decrease
the saturation of the reflected object. For example a good practice to avoid a
stacking effect is to always make your water darker than the sky. Unless of course it
is running foam.
Q : Does the focal point have to be the only clear part of the painting?
A: No, it’s the part that predominates the most in the painting. Every part should be
‘clear’ in a painting, so that the viewer does not notice the obvious nature of the
focal point by smudging or blurring the parts that are not the focal point. We use
simplicity of information among other devices to establish the relationship between
the focal point and other areas. A good test to visually seek out and even the define
the most dominant focal point in a painting, is to stare at the focal point, and if
nothing competes with it in the periphery or is calling for too much attention, then
you know that all other parts are subordinate than the area stared at. Likewise, we
know a focal point whereby staring at any corner or point in the painting, there will
always be a spot that is demanding us to look there, not just by suggesting potential
interest in our periphery, but a spot that is intrusively pulling the eye from every
other corner. Thus if no other part calls for the same attention while looking at the
focal point, then voila, you are looking at your focal point.

Q: Can you explain the concept of a painting being low-key?

A: A good painting can either be high, low and mid key. This means that a painting’s
key is the sum of all the values in the composition that yield either an overall light,
dark or mid value painting. A mid key painting can either be full key or just regular
middle key. The former refers to it having a broader range of values, using light
shapes and dark shapes, that overall mix into a mid value in average. And the latter,
means that all the shapes, including darks and lights are closer to the mid tone, and
are much closer together in value. An old Dutch painting is an example of a low key
painting, an Impressionist paintings is generally a mid key painting, and a pencil
sketch would be a high key image. Scenes depicting a twilight mood can be
considered a low key. A mid day beach scene would be an example of a high key
painting.
Q: Can you explain the idea of ground planes reflecting into the clouds?
A: Since light is reflected by several surfaces, the sun striking a ground source can
have enough brilliance to reflect into the clouds in spite of the distance. This is a bit
hard to observe and not very common, but artistically it is a valid way to tie colors
together more, and harmonize them by reflecting them into each other. But for this
to happen, you have to make sure that the ground plans reflecting into the bottom of
the clouds is significantly sunlit. For example in the macro world if there is a green
grass field that a sunlit, this you would be present in the cloud shadows, even if the
naked eye does and see it and much less it will show up in a photograph because the
photons of light travel everywhere. Nature has its own way of harmonizing color
even if we do not perceive this in an obvious fashion. In a painting we would have to
add a hint of green to the bottom of the clouds to tie the ground with the sky so all
the colors become echoed.
Q: If we can only see 5 values, why is it the manufacturers make so many
values?
A: Manufacturers are not artists, they are retailers, and they will make what sells or
what appears to be convenient to artists. They also make endless shaded of this or
that color, that no advanced artist uses. Also take into account that people do
modern art and they will like to use black or very dark purples. Not everybody is a
landscape artist. The human eye can see many more than five values. We see over
100. But when it comes to pigment in the painting being inside of a studio we no
longer have the sunlight that will give us a broader range of values. Therefore we are
limited to the light inside of a house. Because humans are not wired to call out a
value by looking at a color, we simplify the process to only think and three gray
tones as we’re mixing paint.
Q: While painting outdoors you can move your head, does this cause conflict
in painting the way the eye sees in with respect to a canvas?
A: We cannot paint our canvass as if it was a window through a real scene where the
eye will be allowed to roam around and focus near the frames or no fly zone, like it
does in real life (where the eye has no limit to where it can focus). The frames or
edges in a painting are there for a purpose, which is to isolate the piece from the real
world, and so the edges the parts of the painting near the frame, or no fly zones,
have to be respected as such, and manipulate the viewer so that his interest stays
inside the painting. Otherwise, if we let the eye move around like it does in real life,
in the painting, then we are saying that we want the eye to roam near the edges of
the canvas, left to right, top to bottom, until it jumps to the frame itself, and from
the frame to the wall, away from the painting, into the next one.
Q:What do you mean by working front to back, don’t you rather mean that
we have to work back to front as a procedure?
A: I am not referring to the painting process. Obviously if you do watercolor it would
be recommend the ball to put the sky in first and then place objects on top of that
such as trees. The concept thinking front to back that I have referred to is to create
the feeling of three dimensions by implementing techniques so that the painting
contains the illusion of objects receiving further into the distance. This is done by
manipulating edges, by overlapping, by placing heavier texture in front of thinner
texture, lightning things in the distance, cooling the colors in the distance, etc. I am
making you aware to think beyond a two dimensional visualization.
Q:What can you suggest for perceiving shapes and values as practice?
A: The book titled, “Your Artist’s Brain”, does a marvelous job answering this.
Q: Does not the lead in part of a painting cause the Fovea to move around
the painting?
A: The fovea is for referring more to deliberate focus, in armatures, whereas the eye
is just persuaded unconsciously to move around, without deliberate focus around the
painting. The eye is at the mercy of how the artist rendered the armature; you have
no say unless you want to artificially focus here or there. But in a composition, the
eye is moved around without it knowing. The goal of the artist is to take the viewer
for a visual hike in the painting.
Q: What do you think of the Idea that artists glaze the painting for
harmony?
A: Glazing will help harmonize the colors together. For example if you take a overall
green painting that has red bushes obviously these two colors would be discordant
and would not harmonize. If we glaze the painting with burnt sienna the green trees
will start to shift towards the orange in the red bush will become a red orange. It
both the green and the red shapes have an orange film on top, this will help them
share a common color. Glazing is like putting on sunglasses that have a specific tint.
Q:If using abstract shapes are important to create a good painting why not
paint only from your imagination?
A: This is good thinking, because the subject should be a mere guide and inspiration
to the blue print one should already have in the mind. If one understands how
abstract shapes need to play together in a painting, then one will need to have
certain particular approximations to certain shapes in order to yield a likeness. So,
painting entirely from the imagination is not valid, unless one knows the particular
shapes of the subject through memory. We study nature in our subject in so far as
we are interested in representational painting, but if you are purely interest in
abstract art, then by all means, paint from your head. But after all any good image,
is technically an abstract painting at a visual level, but
representational in meaning, to the mind. What makes a painting representational
from abstract is entirely up to the mind in assigning meaning to shapes it has been
familiar with through life. It is safe to say that mature artists will infiltrate their
imagination into the painting based on previous shapes that have worked before.

Questions answered by Kenneth Vloothuis. Proof read by Johannes.