Careful observation – Lee Muir-Haman Watercolor Painting

July 21, 2021April 23, 2022

How Can I Become My Own Best Watercolor Teacher?

Wouldn’t it be terrific if we could each find our perfect watercolor painting teacher (if watercolor is our chosen medium)? But they are hard to find! And a great artist doesn’t necessarily make a great teacher. How many good teachers are there? And how easy are they to find? I looked for years for a local watercolor teacher before running into my mentor by chance. You may be limited by where you live and the desire to take in-person classes. You will have more teachers to choose from if you are willing to take a workshop or even an online course. But after the workshop ends, then what? Even if you could find a good local teacher, would classes cost a lot of money? And each teacher you are able to locate will provide instruction in their own way, in their own style. Will they teach what you need to know?

What if, in addition to any painting instructor or classes you find, you could also become your own teacher, able to learn about and explore all the things you need and want to know? You can, with the proper attitude and mindset. First you must make a strong commitment to improve your painting. To become your own teacher, consider what you’d hope for in any good teacher, then strive to cultivate those same characteristics in yourself.

Are you able to cultivate the awareness and OBJECTIVITY necessary to evaluate your paintings with some detachment? In other words, can you get some distance on your work? To be a good teacher to yourself, you must be able to step back and view your work as though someone else painted it (during the painting process, as well as after the painting is complete).

CLOSELY OBSERVE details in your work and the scene you are painting. Does what you’re doing in your picture work? What is going wrong? If something is not quite right, pause during painting to evaluate the situation. You’ll need to figure out the problem if something looks odd, before rushing in to try this or maybe that. While pausing, ask yourself what you might change to correct the problem. For instance, are my values (lights/darks) correct? Am I using the colors and color temperature I need to create an effective image? Are edges soft or crisp enough where they need to be? Am I using too much (or too little) wetness? Am I emphasizing my center of interest appropriately, or has another section of my painting taken over center stage? Have I lost important highlights? Through such an assessment, you can become aware of the picture’s difficulties and create a plan to resolve any problem. With possible solutions in mind, you can then resume painting.

You will need to have PATIENCE with yourself. Learning to paint takes perseverance and time. While we all strive for quick progress, often it seems like we take two steps forward only to take one step back. Yet, that is how we all learn – we need to take action and learn from our mistakes.

Be KIND to yourself. You deserve respect and understanding. A good teacher is warm, caring, supportive, and has empathy – encouraging painting strengths as well as pinpointing places to make improvements.

Don’t give up! A good teacher is positive and reassuring. It’s okay to step away from a painting for a breather if you need it, but remember to be ENCOURAGING and give yourself a pep talk, in spite of any frustrations. For more insight on self-assessment of painting problems, you might like to read ‘A Positive, Problem-Solving Attitude To Overcome Frustration’, (1/9/2020), https://leemuirhaman.com/2020/01/09/become-a-problem-solver-to-overcome-that-awkward-stage/.

Let’s be HONEST. Give yourself honest feedback (but not harsh criticism). Painting is NOT a matter only of talent – painting skills can be learned. Improvement comes from lots of practice and repetition.You know learning to paint can be difficult, and sometimes frustrating and discouraging, but don’t forget it can be fun and worth all the hard work!

Take RESPONSIBILITY for improving yourself. Search out and study when you want to learn more (through books, YouTube videos, ‘googling’ a question you might have, signing up for a workshop, joining art Facebook groups that interest you, taking online classes with teachers you admire and joining their online support groups). Try not to blame mistakes or poor painting on outside circumstances (poor quality paper, humid weather, lack of time, confusing template image, cheap paints). Blaming takes responsibility out of your hands and will make it difficult for you to see what YOU can do to take charge and resolve any difficulties.

Do not settle for half-hearted effort from yourself. Strive to do your best! A good teacher has high expectations, and will MOTIVATE and CHALLENGE a student. Encourage yourself to do the hard, consistent work necessary to improve.

Finally, don’t take yourself TOO SERIOUSLY. Yes, you need to work hard, but keep in mind that everyone makes mistakes. No worries! Strive to enjoy the process of painting. Remember a good teacher is fun, full of joy, playful, perhaps even high-spirited. My favorite watercolor teacher told jokes and stories throughout every single class.

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August 21, 2020May 29, 2021

I Just Want To Know The Rules… Of Reflections.

I’ve been painting a lot of water and reflections in my watercolor painting this summer. Water is appealing! It can add interest, mood, and depth to a landscape. I love to paint water! However, reflections can cause all kinds of problems, and be quite challenging to paint.

SO MANY VARIATIONS!

Since there are numerous variations in the appearance of water, each painted differently, it makes sense that there are also differences in the way reflections are painted. Your scene could show still water, a slow moving river, a rushing stream with whitewater, a windswept lake, water riffled by a soft breeze, a shallow puddle, rolling ocean swells, or crashing waves. The techniques used to paint reflections are determined by the characteristics of the water itself.

OBSERVE CAREFULLY.

But before painting a water scene, it’s important to understand what causes the changes in water’s appearance. As an artist, you mustn’t merely paint a blue wash with a few straight lines for ‘ripples’ and expect this to look convincing as water. It won’t be convincing at all! Instead, take the time to slow down and to closely OBSERVE and study reflections. You might want to read Painting Begins With Looking And Seeing, 12/18/2018, https://leemuirhaman.com/2018/12/18/painting-begins-with-looking-and-seeing/, to learn more about critical observation skills.

WHAT COLOR IS THE WATER?

In general, the color of water is determined by the color of the sky. A clear, blue sky does produce a blue sky reflection, whereas an overcast, stormy day could create a gray water surface. A yellow dawn or an orange sunset would similarly affect the color of the water that you see.

When painting water, keep in mind that it would usually look better as a GRADUATED WASH, darker at the front and getting lighter as it recedes into the background. A graduated wash is preferable to a flat wash of a single unchanging value. The water in the foreground tends to be shallower, allowing a viewer to see more of the lake or river bottom. In contrast, when water is seen from a distance, the viewing angle is more acute, meaning that more of the light sky is reflected.

Yet, water is not usually a perfect reflecting surface (like a mirror). Water tends to be translucent, like frosted glass, allowing light to pass through it, but diffusing the light at the same time. That is, water is a translucent liquid with a reflective surface. The water, if you eliminate the reflection, has its own ‘local’ color, which will depend on minerals, silt, or microscopic life suspended in the water as well as the depth of the water and whether you can see the bottom. So, while water will reflect sky color, it also has a color of its own.

REFLECTIONS.

Usually there are objects in or surrounding a body of water. These will be reflected on the water’s surface. There may be a shore with trees and other vegetation, or buildings, bridges, boats, rocks, or fences and posts. We might see reflected light on the water’s surface or even another object, for example, the red of a nearby buoy reflected in the water, or the water’s color reflected up onto the hull of a boat.

Since the surface of the water is seldom perfectly calm, but may be disturbed by a faint breeze or the moving of the water, the reflection almost always is blurred. And when the water surface is disturbed by a stronger wind, lighter rippled areas appear that reflect the sky, not the shoreline objects.

YOUR PAINTING OF WATER NEEDS TO VARY AS THE WATER VARIES.

There seems to be so much diversity! Since different variations of water create so many types of reflections, how do we keep these straight? And, how in the world do we know how to go about painting each?

SOLUTION?

Make your painting plan on a case by case basis. First, CLOSELY OBSERVE your water scene and note important details.

Second, review Zoltan Szabo’s 10 RULES on the PHYSICAL LAWS of reflection. Understand, then memorize these important rules and you will know exactly how reflections work. There are no shortcuts here if you want your reflections to be convincing!

RULE ONE: Any given point on an object must reflect DIRECTLY BELOW itself. Further, the distance from the bottom of the object to the top of the reflection is exactly equal to the height of the actual object, even if part of the object is not visible in the reflection.

RULE TWO: An object tilting TOWARD you will foreshorten, and its reflection will seem LONGER than the tilted object.

RULE THREE: When an object tilts AWAY from you, its reflection appears SHORTER than the object itself.

RULE FOUR: The reflection of an object appears the way you would see it if your EYES were ON THE SURFACE OF THE WATER, where the reflection is located. Since your vantage point is always higher than the reflection on the water’s surface, you may be able to see inside a boat on the water while the reflection will show only the outside of the boat’s hull.

RULE FIVE: The TONAL VALUE of a reflection is controlled by the DEEPEST VALUE of the water’s own LOCAL COLOR. NO reflection can be darker than the water’s own local color. Therefore, you will have to consider BOTH the sky color AND the water’s local color when painting a reflection. This can be extremely confusing! If, for example, the color of the water’s surface is a combination of shallow bottom (dark local color) and the sky’s reflection, green weeds may be close in value to the water’s surface. If these weeds block the sky reflection, the muddy bottom dominates the color and value of the weed’s reflection – the reflection is similar to the muddy bottom color. What this means is – if the value of the reflecting object is LIGHTER than the deepest value of the water’s own LOCAL color, the reflection will be DARKER than the object.

If an object has the SAME value as the LOCAL color of the water, its reflection will also have the SAME value.

Whereas, if the object is DARKER than the water’s own LOCAL color, it still reflects the LIGHTER local color. A DARK tree’s reflection in a shallow light-colored stream (i.e. the LOCAL color is light) will be LIGHTER than the dark tree itself.

RULE SIX: The color of a reflection is influenced by the LOCAL COLOR of the water. For example, a red boat would reflect the red hull plus the water’s own LOCAL COLOR – if brown, then reflection would appear reddish-brown. Or a reflection of a white boat in blue-gray water would look similar to the LOCAL COLOR – white plus the blue-gray of the water. A blue boat in the same blue-gray water would appear a darker blue – a combination of the blue of the boat with the color of the water (blue-gray).

RULE SEVEN: (Sounds scary, but it isn’t really.) The angle of incidence and the angle of reflection are always the same. That is, on STILL water, when you look at a reflection you’re looking at the ‘point of reflection’. Your line of view creates an angle with the water’s surface, and this is the angle of incidence. A reciprocal angle is formed between the object being reflected and the water’s surface. These two angles are the same size. See below.

Chart from Zoltan Szabo’s 70 Favorite Watercolor Techniques, p.25.

Why does this matter? Because, when there are WAVES, things change – the angle of reflection bounces off a TILTED surface rather than a flat mirror-like surface, AND then the ANGLE OF REFLECTION changes. In simple terms, when there are waves, the eye sees a DIFFERENT IMAGE on each side of the wave. Waves have a near and far side! A wave’s NEAR side often reflects the sky (and also shows some local color) while the wave’s FAR side (which appears narrower because of its tilt!) reflects what is on the other side of the wave (what is behind the wave).

RULE EIGHT: Reflections are not in the water but ON ITS SURFACE. A reflection wiggles following the movement of the water. Also, the reflection of the far object in the nearby waves will start to SKIP just before it stops reflecting on the waves’ NEAR SIDES. Reflections on the FAR SIDE of the waves will reflect a little longer/farther, until the whole wave reflects only the sky.

RULE NINE: If a gentle wind blows from the side making tiny riffled waves, you may see BREEZE PATTERNS interrupting otherwise calm reflections. They are dominated by the color and value of the sky.

RULE TEN: When a very light subject reflects against a very dark background in GENTLY moving water, its reflection may appear much LONGER than the length of the object itself. The more the contrast (between light and dark), the farther the reflection stretches. If the water is NOT MOVING, however, the reflecting bright/light object will be the SAME size as it appears in reality.

June 18, 2019January 13, 2020

How Wet Is Too Wet? The Secrets To Controlling Water And Paint.

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If you have ever tried to paint with watercolors, you know how difficult it can be to estimate amounts of water accurately. Some beginners may use too much water and lose control of their painting or paint overly pale colors. Other beginners are inclined to use rather dry, stiff color in their work creating uneven, streaky, or possibly even muddy passages. How wet is too wet?

While many people feel watercolor is difficult and uncontrollable, once you understand how using the right amount of water can give you control, you’ll begin to have more fun painting.

BASIC RULE.

A basic (and unbreakable ) rule of watercolor is that the wettest area of paint (or water) ALWAYS flows into a less wet (damp) area, whether you are placing paint next to other paint on the watercolor paper or touching a wet or paint-filled brush to paint already on the paper.

Further, there are different degrees of wetness, and these differences affect the success of the techniques a painter uses. Whether a technique works or not will depend on your ability to observe and control the amount of wetness involved.

THE SECRETS.

The secrets to controlling the application of your watercolor paint are 1.) TIMING, and 2.) LEARNING TO JUDGE THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF WETNESS for the job you want to do. The moisture comes from several sources, including the mixed puddles of paint, the degree of dampness of the watercolor paper, and the amount of water/paint in the brush.

When you want controlled, clearly defined brushstrokes and a hard edge, paint on a dry paper (wet-on-dry). On dry paper, paint will only go where you put it. Keep in mind that after you have put paint down, you have created a wet area into which you can charge other colors or paint wet-in-wet. (See one of my related blogs, “Charge Ahead and Mingle: Blending Color on Watercolor Paper”, https://leemuirhaman.com/2019/06/04/charge-ahead-and-mingle-blending-color-on-watercolor-paper/, published June 4, 2019).

It can be difficult to paint large, complicated areas wet-on-dry because some sections of paint may dry too much before you can finish painting the area. This can create problems such as ‘cauliflowers’, ‘blossoms’, or ‘backwashes’ as you place wetter paint next to a less wet (damp, starting to dry) wash. (Remember that wetter ALWAYS flows into less wet!) Try to paint leaving a ‘bead’ of wet paint on the edge of your painted area (i.e. keep your paint edge wet) while you pause to reload your brush with color, to avoid having a drying edge of paint. If you have trouble maintaining a ‘bead’, you might want to pre-wet the area to be painted.

Make sure you mix a large enough puddle of paint so that you don’t need to skimp on paint or run out of mixed color partway through a wash. Also use a large enough brush to get paint down quickly, before it starts to dry and creates unwanted brush marks or ‘cauliflowers’.

One important point to remember is that watercolor fades as it dries and color that looks just right when it’s wet, can often look weak and unconvincing when dry. Try to mix your colors darker than you think you need. Getting the color right the first time looks fresher (and often less muddy) than trying to adjust color with a second layer over the first. If possible, try to avoid unnecessary over-painting.

THE PAINT ITSELF.

Only experimentation will tell you what your paints will do, which is why you hear so much about the need to practice painting and to get to know the colors on your own palette. Paint behaviors depend on the type of pigment used in manufacture (organic, mineral, chemical, dye), how finely the pigment is ground (how it is milled), and also whether or not paint contains fillers (as many student grade paints do). Different brands may use different ingredients in different proportions. Generally, experts say that the more transparent a pigment, the better its flow on a wet surface.

PAPER AND TIMING.

The wetness of the watercolor paper itself also is a factor in how paint behaves. When water is first applied to paper it can be described as FLOODED with a sheet of water. After a short time, a WET sheet of paper becomes evident, as water starts to soak into the paper. On wet paper, you see a shine but the texture of the paper can be observed. As time goes on, water continues to soak into and evaporate from the paper. On DAMP paper the shine becomes dull and the watercolor paper is ready for the artist to put paint to paper. Here is where TIMING becomes so important! If the shine disappears from the MOIST paper, it can be a problematic time to paint. The paper may not be wet enough for paint to move smoothly or may be drying unevenly, which can create unexpected streaks or bleeds. (Note that the time it takes for these processes to occur can vary quite a bit depending on weather conditions, such as humidity, and even the type of watercolor paper in use.)

THE BRUSH.

Similarly, through practice, you should learn how to control the amount of water on your brush. Small brushes don’t hold a lot of water or paint, especially synthetic brushes, so it is difficult to overload them. But they also cover a limited area when painting, making it very unlikely that you will be able to paint a smooth wash with them. Large brushes will quickly cover the paper and keep your painting looking spontaneous, however, they can sometimes hold more water and paint than you want. “How much water should I use?” Not too much.

A SOPPING brush, which goes directly from the water container to the paper, is only okay when you are pre-wetting your paper! You will probably NOT want to paint with a dripping, sopping brush because too much paint will flow onto your paper and you will have little control. Instead, a WET brush is wiped once or twice on the edge of the water container or tapped lightly on a paper towel to make it more manageable, and can be dipped into the paint and used for painting. Before applying the paint, check your brush again to see if it is dripping with paint, and, if so, gently squeeze a small amount off on the edge of the palette or on a paper towel, as before. A DAMP brush is wiped on the edge of the water container and excess moisture is squeezed or blotted away. A damp brush can still moisten your paper and would be ideal for ‘softening an edge’. When softening a just painted edge, the painted edge should still be wet AND the brush MUST be less wet than the painted area. (See my related blog “Softening An Edge or Fading Out”, https://leemuirhaman.com/2018/10/23/softening-an-edge-or-fading-out/, dated October 23, 2018.) Finally, a MOIST brush has only enough moisture to hold the brush in shape and would be perfect to use for lifting color.

TO SUMMARIZE.

While nothing is simple in learning to paint, attention to detail and practice WILL lead to your success. Everyone can learn how to paint. Keep in mind the basic rule of hydrodynamics in watercolor – that the wettest area of paint (or water) ALWAYS flows into a less wet (damp) area. And also try to remember, the secrets to controlling the application of your watercolor paint are 1.) TIMING, and 2.) LEARNING TO JUDGE THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF WETNESS for the job you want to do. The moisture comes from several sources, including the mixed puddles of paint, the degree of dampness of the watercolor paper, and the amount of water/paint in the brush. Enjoy!

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January 8, 2019January 16, 2020

Creativity Can Be Learned!

CREATIVITY CAN BE LEARNED!

By adopting a creative outlook, you open yourself up to both new possibilities and to change. You become able to find new answers, new solutions, and new ideas. A creative mind can transform one thing into another – can look at the same thing as everyone else but think something different. Creative artists can change their perspective and, by using their knowledge and experience, can make the ordinary extraordinary. Creative ideas come from manipulating and transforming your resources, and you can choose from many creative techniques and strategies when transforming those materials. The stages of this creative process include identifying, preparing, incubating, reaching a breakthrough, and finding a resolution. In the preparation stage, techniques for modifying and changing your vision can include comparing, reversing, connecting, imagining, eliminating, and rearranging.

Everyone has the potential to be creative. In other words, with a little effort, you can increase your level of creativity. The quickest way to kill your creativity, however, is to think you have neither talent nor creativity. Believing that you have insurmountable limitations can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, if you think you are not creative, you hesitate to try, and – sure enough – you fail to be creative.

Instead, believe in yourself. Attitude is important! Develop your skills: skills build confidence. Improve your drawing, and practice your painting techniques. Improvement comes with practice. Emphasize the fun of creating rather than the achievement of results. Try to notice the good things you’ve done, and don’t dwell on mistakes. Set yourself achievable goals, and persevere.

Try new things, and expose yourself to new ideas. Look at artwork in museums and galleries and at art fairs. Read books and magazines. Look around you, and observe. New experiences stimulate your imagination. Similarly, vary your routines, and do the unexpected. CHANGE jumpstarts your creative thinking, and creativity becomes more accessible when you can begin to act more impulsively in your life. Change a problem by sneaking up on it from a different direction. You can try something fresh – a new way with an old theme, a different point of view, a new technique.

A childlike playfulness allows you to relax your mind so that creative images come to you. IMAGINATION plays a large part in the process. Take a few minutes every day to work on freeing up your imagination. Think of this as a way of stretching your creative muscles, getting them limber. You should aim for a state of relaxed attention, when you can be free of interruptions. Let yourself daydream, and empty your mind of all the distracting “clutter” of chores or things that need to be done. (Natalie Goldberg calls this negative state of mind “monkey mind.”) Allow spontaneous images to come and go. These images express your connections with your inner self, and that connection is what creativity is all about.

OBSERVING AND BEING AWARE of what is around you is important to developing your creativity as well. People tend to look at things without really seeing them. They block out the unfamiliar and allow access only to what they feel comfortable with. (See my blog dated 12/18/18, “Painting Begins with Looking and Seeing”, https://leemuirhaman.com/2018/12/18/painting-begins-with-looking-and-seeing/, at leemuirhaman.com.) Try to focus your awareness on what is around you and discover things you may have overlooked, details that others don’t see. CHANGING YOUR FOCUS increases your creativity. Train yourself to look closely and refocus.

While no subject is totally new (everybody has painted water or mountains or trees), your unique experiences and observations influence everything you paint or draw. You modify, add to, or subtract from what is there to make something new. Your subject often chooses you. It doesn’t matter how ordinary the subject is: what you bring to it that is new is YOURSELF. Your point of view is different from everyone else’s. Tap your inner resources to find your responses to life’s experiences. What makes you happy, angry, calm, nostalgic? Use your EYE, MIND, AND HEART in your artwork. Strive to make your art your own and not to copy; copying denies your uniqueness. When you paint or draw, you are making visible something that you might not be able to express in words, something that combines how the subject appears to you with what you think about it and how you react to it emotionally.

There are definite steps to the creative process, whether they occur over a long period of time or happen very quickly. The first step in the creative process involves the IDENTIFICATION of the subject or problem to be solved (for example, selecting what to paint or learning a new technique). Nothing creative can happen until you recognize what you want to do.

The PREPARATION step follows, during which you consider many possible solutions. You may make a thumbnail sketch, plan color schemes, consider altering the composition by eliminating or adding components, decide on the placement of a focal point. You also consider the mood, time of day, and season of the year for the painting. In watercolor painting, most of this THINKING AND DESIGNING phase is done before you start to paint. It is advisable to decide exactly what you are trying to do and consider possible plans of attack.

In the INCUBATION phase, you set the project aside for a time. All the information that you accumulated and thought about in the preparation stage needs to be sorted in your unconscious mind. This stage may take only minutes while you organize your paints or take a quick break. On the other hand, it may take a much longer time for all the information to gel into a final solution.

BREAKTHROUGH is the next stage in the creative process, when the solution/plan becomes apparent. Your solution does not come out of the blue fully formed but is a result of all of your previous thinking. At this point, RESOLUTION completes the process, and you’re ready to try your solution and see how it works.

Okay, so you’re ready to be more creative! Where do you find ideas? If you can observe carefully, approach your art playfully, and not concern yourself with the approval of other people, you will discover painting ideas everywhere you go. Ideas are in familiar places like libraries, malls, food markets, farmers’ markets, coffee shops, the beach; at work, in newspapers or magazines, at museums, galleries, art fairs, at home, in sunlight or moonlight, outside on a walk or inside looking out the window. If you can change your focus to discover things you may have overlooked and things that others don’t notice, you will have many images and ideas come to your attention. Some images will interest you more than others, because we each have different passions. It is helpful to get in touch with yourself and come to understand what issues and ideas are important to you. Are you repeatedly drawn to animals in their natural surroundings or to baby animals? Do you enjoy images of the hustle and bustle of the city or see people as isolated in the city? Do you find connections between the grandeur and power of nature and an individual human? The subjects that suddenly surface in your mind and pique your curiosity are usually topics you feel strongly about, and thus they will likely be excellent topics for you to paint. If it feels good, paint it!

The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. And the true creator may be recognized by his ability to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note.

Igor Stravinsky, The Poetics of Music

December 18, 2018February 24, 2020

Painting Begins With Looking and Seeing…

Many inexperienced painters believe that to produce a good painting, all they need is mastery of technique. However, it takes more than finely executed techniques to achieve an artistic result. Artists need to observe closely what they intend to paint. When you’re an artist, seeing isn’t simple.

Most of the time, we look at things with only part of our attention. We see only what we expect to see. We assign a label to every image. For instance, if what we are looking at is a “tree,” we may not look closely at what is really there. This habit of not paying close attention keeps us from actually looking at things. In the everyday world, we quickly categorize and move on.

However, to paint or draw successfully, artists need to slow down so they can examine and study the shapes and values that make up an observed object. Artists try to avoid labeling an object as “tree” or anything else and instead train themselves to interpret what they see in a new way. Seeing means focusing attention, looking at shapes, values, and colors before beginning to paint. Where is the light hitting the tree branches? Can you see through the branches? What is the overall shape of the tree? Are branches straight, upturned, crooked, rough? Is the tree lopsided or symmetrical? Are the highlights a different color from the shadows? What is the weather, and how does it affect the appearance of the “tree”? By asking such questions and looking carefully, you can accurately paint what you see, NOT what you think you see.

Drawing helps you see, and seeing helps you draw. Drawing trains the mind, hand, and eye to work together. Many beginning artists avoid drawing altogether if they can, feeling that their drawing skills are not good. However, you should not feel obliged to render precise drawings of what you wish to paint! Do not let your concerns about drawing technique prevent you from trying to draw what is before you! One of the main purposes of drawing is to train yourself to see shapes and spaces more accurately – to “see” like an artist and take note of details. By keeping your drawing SIMPLE, just getting something down relatively quickly, you can allow yourself to see. Look for basic shapes, and notice how they are connected. Find larger shapes first; then fit smaller shapes into them. More specifically, see the image as a whole; then concentrate on individual components. Distracting details are only decoration on the surface of these shapes. Concentrate; work slowly and intently. Give yourself the time to observe and take in information before rushing to produce an image. Ultimately, you should be able to perceive everything you see as totally abstract forms, values, lines, and color, as in a jigsaw puzzle. Remember that shadows are shapes! Reflections are shapes as well. Backgrounds have shape and should act as frames for the subject of a painting. Only when you can “see” in this way will you begin to be able to suggest three-dimensional reality on your flat, two-dimensional paper.

Frederick Franck, artist and philosopher, says in The Zen of Seeing/Drawing: “I have learned that what I have not drawn I have never really seen, and that when I start drawing an ordinary thing I realize how extraordinary it is, sheer miracle . . . .” So do not hesitate to sketch and draw what you intend to paint. As you draw, you will notice important details and sharpen the mind/hand/eye coordination necessary to improve your painting skills. Drawing is not something you can or cannot do; it is a skill that requires practice and time, just like any other ability (including painting). The skills and mental processes necessary for drawing are the same as those used when painting with a brush.

Another benefit of drawing and sketching, in addition to developing necessary observational skills, is that you will learn to condense observed information into a simplified format, and this ability will come through in your painting. With a drawing you are more likely to end up with your focal point being prominent, because you concentrate mainly on that particular feature. Your drawing will be simplified, easier on the eye of the viewer, as you collect only the information that counts and leave out extraneous material.

Reference photos:

Line drawing:

Strive to “see” the world in terms of shape, pattern, color, line, and texture. Having observed carefully, use the information to record an image skillfully. Mastering these techniques will improve the quality of your work. Your personal viewpoint or individual perception of the world will become apparent as you interpret what you “see” and choose what to record and include in your drawing or painting.

Your picture has your touch in it. You can pick a subject that appeals or has special meaning to you. You can rearrange what you’re looking at any way you like. You can simplify or exaggerate parts of what you see. Look beyond the normal, the everyday, the expected for your painting subjects. Notice the negative shapes, the rhythms, the reflected lights, the colors. Look at an object close up for a new viewpoint. Consider a portrait approach or botanical style. Look for varied shapes and unusual forms to add interest to your picture. Each person sees the world in a different way.