by Miriam Slater

Created on: September 13, 2008

Three Ideas Essential to Drawing and Painting

The following three ideas are useful for beginners (as well as experienced artists) and serve to enhance effectiveness of anyone's art, regardless of the style they work in. I have spent over twenty years studying art from some of the finest teachers available and thought it was time to pass on some of the ideas learned along the way. First of all, when using some of these ideas, it will be easier if you don't focus on getting the anatomy correct or make a landscape look real because this problem will often self resolve as you begin incorporating new ideas into your work. Also, it can be distracting to think of too many ideas at once especially while you are learning. Many artists can make things look realistic and there is a lot of information on how to achieve realism in your work. It is more difficult to make art that is compelling enough to profoundly touch the viewer. The addition of art principles helps take your art to a deeper and more effective level of communication.

The first concept is to consider is the presence of opposite elements or "interesting differences" as they are called. This means to find different and opposing qualities (such as in the line, color, texture, and subject matter of your work) and then to play up the differences you see. Once they are defined, the second step is to arrange these elements in an interesting manner. For example, when drawing a line on a figure, the line should contain within it oppositional elements. It can be wide in some areas and thin in others, it can appear and then disappear, it can wiggle and then get calm or it can be curved only to become straight again. However, for the play of opposites to really work, it is best to arrange them in an interesting manner, which often means a lot of one and a small amount of the other. If you have equal amounts then they tend to "cancel" each other out visually. For example, if a drawing is intended to be mostly red then add a touch of green, or use green paper as the background over which the red is applied (the French artist Matisse would frequently employ this idea in his paintings). To get a drawing to feel very dark, include a sliver of bright light somewhere and then your audience will really feel the darkness. (Take a look at Caravaggio or Rubens for their use of lights and darks). Or in the case of subject matter, if you want to create a sad image, to make it really sad, put some happiness in it. A time-tested example

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