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Art Structure
Elements of Visual Design for Drawing & Painting
Foreword
For the past year or so I have been travelling throughout Australia and Europe and, amongst other endeavors, painting en plein air (in the open air). Landscapes have been for the most part a minor part of my careers ouevre. These small paintings are premier coups first strikes that take about 212 to 3 hours from start to finish. There is no mucking about when painting outdoors, no lengthy considerations on structural issues such as composition, color lay-in, etc.. I have to rely on snap decisions and am literally painting by the seat of my pants.

Michael Britton, Surf Boat at Maroochydore, Queensland, 2011,16 x 20.2 cm, Oil on Panel, 2011

Snap decisions, of course, are buttressed by years of training and knowledge. With experience one knows instinctively what will work and what what will not. The envelope, of course, should still be pushed and risks taken. Quite often I am not even sure of what I am looking at when painting. The premier coup, Surf Boat at Maroochydore, Queensland, illustrated here depicts a surf-rescue boat with rocket-like pontoons this was the first time I had ever seen a boat like this and, it bears admitting, I almost edited out the pontoons thinking that they would read as implausible.

When I am talking about making snap decisions it is with the structural design of a painting. And here is the great divide between the selftaught and the trained artist. With some exceptions, the self-trained artist draws and paints objects not pictures. The objects are generally grouped within an arrangement but each object is drawn and painted singularly. What is lacking in the self-taught artists work is Unity an encompassing vision of purpose and expression (see Lesson 1). Edwin Dickinson, Landscape, Provincetown, Oil on Canvas, 1935, 11 1/8 x 19 1/4 Painting while traveling long-term requires a compactness of both materials and purpose. The premier coups are oil on panel which are hand-cut to as close to (the square root of the divine proportion 1.618) as I can get. I pack a small dove-cut saw along with 500 grams of rabbit-skin glue and whiting for priming. The panels are given an imprimatura of yellow ochre egg tempera and then streaked with charcoal dust suspended in an egg/oil/damar emulsion. This is a High Baroque methodology and the imprimatura comes in quite handy for quickly finishing off a painting. The foreground in Surf Boat relies heavily on the imprimatura.
Dickinsons small landscapes appear artless and unstructured, conveying a sense of intimacy and immediacy. Though a sense of quiet pervades these compositions, they are often, energized by a sense of movement inspired by windy conditions. Most often exhibiting a dim ethereal light and vaporous atmosphere, these subtle scenes are rendered in a subdued and limited tonal range. They eschew the dramatic for the quiet reverie of a nocturne and appear to spring from the artists intuitive subconscious, the result of pure spontaneous creative expression.

Perusing the stock in a second- This small premier coup has a deceptively simple and elegant design. The canvas size is a 3 dynamic rectangle which Dickinson prepared before embarking to the hand bookstore in a small town in beach with his painting gear. Shown here are two powerful pictorial divisions: A is the the hinterlands of Australia I came reciprocal, B is the rabatement. (These are amongst the first lessons in my Symphonic across a first edition of Henry Ras- Composition workshop of which I was first introducted to by one Dickinsons disciples.) musens Art Structure. This book The color scheme is a second-level split complement of Yellow Green and Charcoal was published in New York in 1950 Grey which he achieved with an extremely limited palette of Yellow Ochre, a black when art-instruction books were of (likely Mars) and Flake White. an extraordinary high standard. It was like finding an old friend Art Structure was for almost twenty years the bible of American artists. Consider the mileau of its time and place: Willem de Koonings Woman 1 was still wet on the easel when this book was in its final writing; and Jackson Pollocks seminal drip paintings were spanking brand new. Abstract Expressionism was about to explode onto the art world.

By the early 1970s the lessons of Art Structure were abandoned by the vast majority of art schools and the book fell into obscurity. I was introduced to Art Structure in the early 1980s by my mentor Francis Cunningham who, 30 years earlier, was mentored by Edwin Dickinson who, in turn, studied under William Merritt Chase and Charles Hawthorne. Chase and Hawthorne founded the Chase School which became the New York School of Art. In this second decade of the 21st Century I am finding a fair number of these old art books for sale in secondhand shops and online. Curiously these books were rarely found except perhaps in the occasional flea market. My suspicion is that these books are from the estates of artists who were students in the late 1940s and 1950s. These dust-covered and fragile volumes are a precious commodity whose current availability will soon pass. In the following lessons on the elements of visual design I will synthesize and, where necessary, expand on the lessons presented in Rasmusens Art Structure.

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The Means of Expression

The language of drawing and painting, herein the plastic arts (plasticity is defined as giving form to), is comprised of symbols that express an idea or intent. These symbols, in turn, are created from the visual materials of the artist: line, tone, space pattern, color, and texture. The painters primary agenda is to arrange these symbols into a plastic whole that respects the picture plane into a harmonious correspondence a unity that is vital and complete . The success of a painting depends wholly on the completeness of its unique idea and emotion. The three considerations of successful painting is the Craft, the Spirit (emotion) and the Construct (the language of symbols). In the practice of creating a painting we utilize the design elements (the qualities) of plastic form with our visual materials (the quantities) line, tone, color, etc. to create a unified expression. To express means to give meaning, to say something.
Albert Pinkham Ryder, 1847 - 1917, Toilers of the Sea, Oil on Canvas, 1884 Ryders art was never bound by the literal naturalism of his time. For him painting was not mere representation but creation in the language of color, form, and rhythmic movement. What avails a storm cloud accurate in form and color if the storm is not therein? He used the elements of nature far more freely than any American contemporary painter, shaping them to his creative sense of design.

In the first consideration of painting, the Craft, there are three main divisions: form, theme and technique. Form is the plastic structure of an object or arrangment, both its positive and negative shapes, whose appearance is constructed from our visual materials (quantities) of line, tone, space, etc. Theme is the psychological aspect. It is the idea and meaning to be expressed. Technique is the skillful physical application of our media In this course the focus will be on Form, its character, quantities and qualities, and the basic principles of Unity as it pertains to drawing and painting. We all strive to create good paintings that are unified into a harmonious whole. The failure of a painting can always be ascribed to poor design and a neglect of the unifying plastic means.

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Before embarking on a drawing or painting we should always have a plan. For a prolonged project this may include color and composition sketches. For quick, improvisational paintings such as a premier coup it is highly advised to visualize the design elements before committing to the first brush stroke. As I previously mentioned our materials (line, tone, color, etc.) are the Quantities. The Qualities are the binding elements of basic principles of design, namely Opposition and Transition. Refinements to the basic principles are variation and dominance. The final result of good design is balance and cohesion Unity. The principles of Unity in a successful painting are completely interwoven. There is a sympathetic fusion of both the Quantities and the Qualities such that isolating one from the other for study requires significant simplification. In this course I will first present the issues of design as they relate to the twodimensional pictorial surface. In a later lesson the illusion of depth will be considered. Lets begin with a discussion of the basic characteristics and dimensions of the Quantities:

LINE
There are, generally speaking, five types of line drawing: contour, blind contour, continuous, gesture and constructive. Each type of line drawing expresses its own language in terms of movement, rhythm, proportion and density. A line drawing is not meant to fully describe an objects form (whether it be a still life, landscape or portrait), but instead serves to capture the distilled elements and characteristics of the subject.

Picasso, Les Moissonneurs, 1919 Contour Line Drawing The contour line expresses weight by using a heavier line and, conversely, delicacy with a light line. Perspective is also suggested with line weight: heavier lines advance while lighter lines recede. At more advanced drawing levels you can express both bold and delicate form with a single dynamic contour line. Picassos drawing, Les Moisonneurs, expresses voluptuous volume using contour line. The exaggerated thickness of the figures denote a heaviness that well suggests the torpor of a midafternoon nap.

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2011. All rights reserved

The Blind Contour Drawing An excellent exercise for developing your sense of tactile form is the blind contour drawing. Looking only at your subject draw the contour with one continuous line. The purpose is to visually feel the form. Dont worry about the proportions; that will come later once you have developed your hand/eye coordination. The blind contour should be drawn as slowly as possible think of it as drawing a line with a sculptural sensibility. Continuous Line Drawing Similar to the blind contour drawing but this is not just an exercise but a work of art. Each line is rendered continuously to depict a form. Henri Matisse, amongst others, was an absolute master of the continuous line drawing. Matisses line drawings are deceptively simple; their power derives not only from the exceptional economy and grace of line but also from the subtly suggested volumes of form. Gesture Line Drawing Henri Matisse The gestural line drawing is a quick and spontaneous depiction of a pose or instance. Gesture drawings are also known as action drawings. The focus in gesture drawing is to capture both movement and weight. Many artists begin their day with gesture drawings to loosen up. The Austrian artist, Egon Schiele (1890-1918) drew many gestural self-portraits with a powerfully expressive angularity. Schieles modus was not to describe volume and grace but raw expressive emotion.

Egon Schiele Constructive Line Drawing The constructive line drawing is generally a preparatory study for a more sustained work such as a painting. It is a traditional study of form and proportion. On top is the full-scale preparation drawing (cartoon) for my near-life-size watercolor painting Arrangement in . The figure and composition was transferred onto a 40x60 sheet of 400 lb cold-press watercolor paper.

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2011. All rights reserved

space pattern
In addition to having the same attributes of line (length, direction and character (i.e., a caligraphic touch)) Space also entails width and depth. Both positive and negative volumes are shapes that can have directional movement (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, recessive, etc.) and characteristics such as curved, wavy, straight, thin, thick, etc. Shapes can be endowed with limitless possibilities round, square, pointed, cubed, etc. Space incorporates the three dimensions of height, width and depth. In painting and drawing an arrangement of Spaces is better understood as a Pattern. Forewith I will now refer to Shape as a singular entity and Pattern as the plural. There are two classes of Patterns: the Closed and the Open. Closed Patterns are those shapes whose contours are pretty much closed and thus the figure they form is distinct from the shape of the ground. [Simplified, Figure is the object, i.e., a vase of flowers, and the Ground is the background. And as you suspected, there is a lot more to Figure/Ground relationships.] Open Patterns are assemblages of shapes whose contours are open on one or more sides. Open shapes can be diffused and blended by tone and color. Open patterns are often used with calligraphic line which acts, quite often, as a cohesive element in form. Calligraphic line is an agent of decoration and delineation and often accentuates the primary pattern theme in a lagging, syncopated fashion.
Henry Rasmusen, Fish, 1951, Oil on Canvas, 8x10 This small work exhibits a closed pattern whose combined shapes constitute the Fish (the positive figure). The ground, or negative shape, is an equally important part of the composition.

Rhythmic variation in pattern contour is critically important. An example of natural rhythm can be found throught the human body a convex curve is balanced by a concave curve thus contributing to subtle serpentine rhythms that used to be called lines of beauty.

Raoul Dufy, The Artists Studio, 1935, is an example of an open pattern accentuated with calligraphic line.

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tone

As we proceed from line to pattern (shape) to tone each of these quantities takes on the characteristics of the previous plus their own distinguishing features. For this course I am defining Tone as an element of design rather than its more common connotation for articulating three-dimensional form. Illustrated in the conte drawing above is Tone is both its meanings. On the left is the finished drawing encompassing tone as both plastic form and design. On the right Tone is presented in its flat, decorative pattern (shape) mode. A flat, patterned tone drawing (and painting Ill discuss this at length in a later lesson) are referred to as a Notan. Notan is a Japanese word that means lightnessdarkness. The arrangement of dark and light in the pattern of a composition is the singularly most important element to achieving a powerful and convincing expression. Without a strong Notan all of the other quantities of pictorial design will fail to achieve their full impact.

color
Color is the prime material of painting and its powers of expression are limitless. Color Theory is outside the scope of this course. It commands its own separate study. However, for color to achieve its full potential it must be expressed within a good design. The plastic qualities of color create depth (push and pull) and contribute to weight, velocity of movement and emotion.

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2011. All rights reserved

Texture
Texture is the tactile sensation of an actual or simulated surface. Simulated texture is created by contrasting effects of line, shape, tone and color. Texture as a quantity of design is highly important in its decorative value for organizing the plastic and expressive elements of a picture. The first illustration is a flat, decorative surface whose textural elements are simulated with a variety of line and color. Its expression relies solely on sensation.

The same decorative pattern painted on a rough canvas creates a radically different experience. The viewer experiences both the actual texture of the canvas and the simulated decorative texture.

The same decorative pattern on rough canvas is taken a step further. The choice of painting medium and its application (i.e., brushstrokes) further elaborates the sensations of texture. The manner in which paint is applied is a significant contributor to good design. The abstract structural patina of paint presents both actual and simulated texture. It also, amongst other qualities, infers velocity and movement.

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2011. All rights reserved

The Canvas Pictorial dimensions

Painters often speak of finding the edge which refers to the pictorial dimensions of the picture plane which is generally termed the Canvas. Good design is incumbent upon a harmonious correspondence of the canvas and the elements arranged within. The Italian painter Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) produced some of the finest still life paintings of the Twentieth Century. He taught geometry at the local state school in Bologna for many years and in his paintings one is immediately arrested by the musicality of form and movement. The schematics for his compositional designs are, like Edwin Dickinson, deceptively simple. Like Color, however, pictorial arrangement (known as both Dynamic Symmetry and Symphonic Composition) is a large topic requiring its own study. However I will touch upon it in a later lesson in this course.
Giorgio Morandi, Natura Morta, 1960, Oil on Canvas This small still life painting is constructed from a dynamic 2 rectangle. The edge is determined at the intersection point of the diagonal from the 1 reciprocal () and the arc drawing from the rabatement (1). 2

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