Information Overload

There is no shortage of information for those wanting to learn how to paint. The abundance of information can be overwhelming for self-taught artists. How does one absorb all of the information from books, internet (including YouTube), videos, etc.?

 

If you’ve painted for a while and continually strive to improve your paintings, you’ve encountered teachings on the following: values, composition, design principles, techniques, soft and hard edges, mixing colours, center of focus, use of neutral greys, warm and cool colours, etc. It is overwhelming at times. What should we focus on and can we focus on all of these?

 

One strategy is to pay attention to information that is important. However, that requires that you are aware of what is considered important. For a beginner, this principle is not obvious. For artists that may not be linear thinkers, a bit of structure and discipline may be required.

 

If I were to categorize the types of things we learn, this would be my breakdown; I’d be happy to present other models you may suggest. First and foremost basic skills such as those presented in the fundamental presented ArtTutor are a must:

• Washes, mark making, dry brush, wet in wet… 
• Colours: the wheel, mixing, hues, tints, shades…
• Values or tones… 
• Special techniques: sponge, splattering, salt…

Once you are comfortable with these, you can start applying other principles. 

 

What do you do with all of the other learnings?  They are overpowering, but a bit of planning will help. During the planning stage you should:

• Determine subject
• Develop composition: through a number of small sketches, you can experiment with various design principles including knowing what your focus is and where you want it to be. You can play with the elements to ensure the eyes wander in the painting and doesn’t flow out of it. 
• Determine values at this stage
• Start thinking of soft and hard edges and how you want to unify the painting. 

Once you have your plan and a preferred sketch, you can paint more freely and focus on some of the other learnings such as colour temperature and application of techniques.

 

As with any other skills, practice will improve them.  However you should prioritize what it is you want to learn and improve. Focusing on one learning at a time will increase your chances of improving that skill or learning.  For example if you want to improve your use of neutral greys, you're going to have to paint a number of watercolours to get the feel of where and how to use this, in addition to learning what colour mixes work in what context.

 

I’m sure that the more we practice, some of the learnings will be applied subconsciously; it’s like learning sports.

 

At the end of the day it's all paint and paper and lots of fun...

 

Today's artist find is Yuko Nagayama.  It's interesting to see how many successful Asian artists do not have the same design concepts as North Americans and other countries. For example, the  rules of thirds does seem to apply to the focal point.

 

 

Have a great week,

Danielle