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Lesson 2: The Structures of Beauty Unity Unity is the first and, by far, most important element of a painting. Everything else is subordinate to Unity. Yet the conundrum is that for Unity to be effective a painting must be built upon concordant Contrasts of value, color, shape and area. Light against dark, complementary color, large and small, regular and irregular shape, and the understructure of divisions of area. And these elements must work seamlessly and effortlessly. The study of Unity, as with any complex subject, needs to be undertaken with a layered approach step-by-step. |
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First, you need to train your eye to see masses flatly and unbroken. You need to distill the image to its essence. This is the root of working from General to Specific. The Notan is the ideal start. Notan is a Japanese term for Dark/Light harmony and it is the Notan that sticks a painting to the wall. A painting that lacks a good Notan will fail. Absolutely no matter how fine the drawing and brushwork it will collapse into a conglomeration of incoherent mumblings of form. Good Notan equals good painting! Rembrandt's Old Man in a Military Costume, 1630 reduced to its essential elements presents a powerful abstract design. The surest way to acquire an instinct for good design is to copy master paintings and reduce them to their essential elements vis-a-vis a notanal pochade (a light/dark thumbnail sketch) as I have done in the following video. Don't use only Black and White. This is a personal bias, of course, but I find it too harsh and, well, ugly. My palette for this notanal pochade is White, Black, Raw Umber and Yellow Ochre. If you're a hardline stickler to color theory then use Burnt Umber instead of the Raw. The rationale for the Burnt Umber is that it will serve as your Red; the Ivory Black as Blue, Yellow Ochre as Yellow, and White is your tint. Hence, you will have all three primary colors at your disposal. Pochades are an excellent training vehicle. They are small and cost/time effective. More importantly, they punch several times above their weight. My notanal pochade was done on an 8x8" canvas (20x20cm) and taped to 20x17.3cm so that it reflected the dimensions of Rembrandt's canvas. Incidentally, Old Man in a Military Costume's canvas has a proportion of 1.27 which is the square root of the Golden Rectangle. I'll discuss this issue at length in an forthcoming lesson. And since I'm on the topic: you should not paint on a white canvas. It is nigh impossible to accurate assess color and values. On my canvas I applied an imprimatura which is a neutral first layer of paint. Refer to my YouTube video on how to apply an imprimatura. Far, far too often the beginning artist gets tangled up in the details. My primary agenda when teaching beginners is to break that dismal habit. The American painter and teacher, Charles Hawthorne (1872-1930), would confiscate his students brushes and replace them with a putty knife. This awkward tool supplants any notion a student might have of decorating their pochades with melancholic eyes and pouty lips. Hawthorne's students fondly called these studies 'mud faces'.
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Portrait Painting | John Singer Sargent's Vernon Lee
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The Portrait Drawing Mastery StudioThe Complete Instant Download Portrait Drawing Training ProgramGet started right now! The Portrait Drawing Mastery Studio is THE comprehensive portrait artist's training and education! The Portrait Drawing Mastery Studio contains everything you need to become a fully rounded portrait artist. Suitable for the hobbyist or professional at any level from beginner to advanced who wants college-level instruction in all aspects of portrait drawing. Whether you want to paint, sculpt or draw portraits - Drawing is the foundation of all art. This is a truth, which has been taught for centuries by all the greatest masters and still holds true today even if you only want to do expressionistic or abstract art. An enormous amount of thought and care has been put into developing these instant download programs as a total package for your highest learning advantage. Another truism is painting mistakes are generally drawing mistakes. As a figurative painter, I can tell you this is an infallible truth. Master your drawing now and save yourself heartbreak later. It is quite disillusioning to spend weeks and months on a painting and as it nears completion all of those drawing errors begin to emerge and take center stage. |
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About Michael Britton Michael Britton is a New York City trained artist (New York Academy of Art) who has taught several thousand artists (some of whom have gone on to full-time art careers as painters and teachers) in his several decades long career. He was the Artistic Director of the Vancouver Academy of Art, Canada for six years and has also taught drawing for Walt Disney Studios, amongst numerous other appointments throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. He is also the author of several art-training videos including Painting Clara Serena. If you have any questions regarding the courses please feel free to contact me at michael-britton-workshops@artacademy.com |
