Don't Get Stuck in the Middle

Around and Up, oil, 8x10

This past week I held a one-day Composition Boot Camp workshop at my studio. The subject of my demo above had several elements that could easily get stuck in the middle. I teach a method for planning out your composition that addresses this, among many other objectives.

In "Around and Up," I wanted a variety of shapes going across the top of the painting, but I didn't want the shape between the two trees to end up dead center. I also didn't want the edge of the left tree to stop at the center. You can see in my sketch below that I placed those shapes in relation to the center and then followed this little "map" when blocking in my painting.

But even after addressing the placement of the major shapes of the composition in the thumbnail sketch, and then in the block-in, the challenge is then to keep it all in place as the painting progresses. If you've been an artist for awhile, you know all too well how things "creep" into the middle of your composition if you don't carefully keep them in their proper place. It's when your thought process shifts from placing the elements to further defining them, that those elements start moving themselves around from their original spot. In my demo above, I kept a close eye on those positive and negative spaces at the top to keep things in place.

Unless your painting relies on a strong statement in which center placement is part of the message being conveyed, you normally want to avoid it. Of course, something in your composition will need to fall across the center areas of the painting. I normally try to be sure no element of the painting is emphasized along the center (i.e., hard edges, sharp contrast, saturated color), and if it is, I'll subdue that area.

Below are a couple of other recent demos from a workshop I taught in Chattanooga, TN last week:

View from Highway 24, oil, 14x11

Evening Glow on Wyanett Creek, oil, 14x11

Upcoming Workshops:

The following three out of my next seven workshops still have room:

OIL Workshop - Dallas, GA - 1-day 

January 31, 2015 (Sat.)

Paulding Fine Arts Association

11 Courthouse Sq., 2nd Floor

Dallas, GA

$125 PFAA members; $150 nonmembers

Contact Peggy Cline at 770-445-4572 or peggycline@att.net 

Visit www.pauldingfinearts.org for more details.

PASTEL Workshop - Stevensville, MD - 3-day 

Workshop - February 6, 7 & 8, 2015 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Demo-only option: - Fri., Feb. 6, 9 am - noon(ish), $45 (prepay), $55 at door

Chesapeake Fine Art Studio 

609 Thompson Creek Rd.

Stevensville, MD 21666

(about 40 minutes from downtown Baltimore)

$400

www.chesapeakefineartstudio.com

410-200-8019

OIL/PASTEL Workshop - Dahlonega, GA - 2-day 

March 19 & 20, 2015 (Thurs/Fri)

The Art Loft

Dahlonega, GA

www.artloft.net 

$285

To register, visit www.artloft.net.

Winter Greys

Happy New Year, everyone!

Last month in my classes at my studio we painted sunny snow scenes. This month we tackled a winter scene on a grey day, which provides a trickier challenge to identify correct color temperatures. Especially when working from photos, we tend to lean too heavily on cool colors, since photos don't always capture the warm hues correctly. Plus, logic incorrectly tricks us into thinking a that a grey, cloudy day should be communicated with mostly cool colors. . Sunlight is still there on a grey day, it's just more diffused and difficult to discern from a photo.

Snowy Driveway, oil, 8x10

Going Up, oil, 8x10

Heading In, pastel, 8x10

Many artists assume that the photos we take on days like this are too dull and grey to provide exciting reference for an eye pleasing painting. However, I look for whatever hint of color might exist in these grey areas and push that color just a bit. If I see warm against a cool, I might push that contrast some more.

The three pieces above were all demos from classes held this past week. I wanted to keep my topic consistent with all of my classes for this month, so I had a little fun changing up the view/composition for each of my demos.

For those of you in Georgia, I have workshops coming up in Paulding County the end of this month and Dahlonega in March. A little further north in the east, I'll be in Maryland in a few weeks and Rhode Island in April. Details below...

Upcoming Workshops:

OIL Workshop - Dallas, GA - 1-day 

January 31, 2015 (Sat.)

Paulding Fine Arts Association

11 Courthouse Sq., 2nd Floor

Dallas, GA

$125 PFAA members; $150 nonmembers

Contact Peggy Cline at 770-445-4572 or peggycline@att.net 

Visit www.pauldingfinearts.org for more details.

PASTEL Workshop - Stevensville, MD - 3-day 

Workshop - February 6, 7 & 8, 2015 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Demo - Thurs., Feb. 5, 5:30 - 8:30 pm, $45, $55 at door

Chesapeake Fine Art Studio 

609 Thompson Creek Rd.

Stevensville, MD 21666

(about 40 minutes from downtown Baltimore)

$400

www.chesapeakefineartstudio.com

410-200-8019

OIL/PASTEL Workshop - Dahlonega, GA - 2-day 

March 19 & 20, 2015 (Thurs/Fri)

The Art Loft

Dahlonega, GA

www.artloft.net 

$285

To register, visit www.artloft.net.

OIL/PASTEL Workshop - Newport, RI - 3-day

April 24, 25 & 26 (Fri/Sat/Sun)

Newport Art Museum

76 Bellevue Ave.

Newport, RI 02840

$365 NAM members; $420 non members

401-848-2787

www.newportartmuseum.org

See my workshop page on my website for details and complete schedule through 2015, or email me with any questions.
www.barbarajaenicke.com