Class Demo -- Painting Paints

Today's lesson:
Painting is about simplifying what you are looking at.  Simply said, it is however one of the most difficult skills for students to realize and a crucial part of learning how to "see" as a painter.  With this demonstration, my main objective was to show the student how to block-in a drawing without using contour lines, and instead, using large broad brushstrokes to form blocks of shapes existing by way of color and value.  This approach to drawing will help you simplify.

I first grouped the three tubes of paint and painted them as one large shape, much like a silhouette (I included the cast shadow as part of the silhouette).  After blocking-in my shape, I then treated the background as a shape and blocked it in.  I now have two shapes--the shape of the paint tubes vs. the shape of the background.  I then proceeded to paint the smaller shape of the cast shadow within the larger paint tubes shape... now I have three shapes.

Next, I continued to brake-down the paint tubes shape into three individual shapes, then, blocked-in the smaller shapes within.  I identified these shapes within as being: shapes of color, shapes of blacks, and shapes of whites.  I now continue on this path of creating smaller shapes within larger ones, where needed.  But before I do, I will step back from my canvas and investigate how I am to go about orchestrating my shapes.  Meaning, now that I can objectively see my shapes in a more simplified manner, I can now better plan out which shapes I want to emphasize and which shapes I choose to understate.  I can do this by making certain shapes more or less colorful, darker or lighter in value, or softer or harder edge intensity.  I can also make objects recede by introducing more of the background color and value into that object.

 Keep in mind that you want a certain amount of mystery to what you are painting.  Meaning, you don't want to have to spell out every detail, only those which you find the need to do so... leaving other details to the viewer's imagination.  Implying detail, is another way of saying it.  I target and go after those features or characteristics which describe or capture the essence of whatever it is I'm painting... much like a caricaturist–or, reference Rembrandt's sketches and you'll see what I mean.