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Painting

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1. Intro

Painting and drawing is a visual art form. I am not good at painting at all. For me, painting is two part

  • Draw the real world
  • Draw the inner world, from imagination

But both seems have better solution, like photograph, literature etc.

Let’s see how my view changed after dive deeper

2. Foundations

Skills

  • Observation, see and interpret. Understand the form, shape, color
  • Drawing, how to represent the world using lines, shapes and volumes
  • Color theory, about color harmony, contrasts, how color affect each other
  • Composition, arranging the elements of art in a way that aesthetically pleasing and effectively communicates intention.

Basic Principles:

  • Line: the edge of objects, convey movement or emotion
  • Shape and form: 2D and 3D, create illusion of space
  • Space: positive (object) and negative (background) space
  • Texture: the quality of a surface

Technique:

  • Medium: each medium pencil, charcoal, acrylic, oil, watercolor, has its unique properties and techniques
  • Perspective: help to create the illusion of depth on a flat surface
  • Shading: help to create volume and dimensionality

2.1. Question

What to observe, how to practice?

  • Forms, shapes, lighting, texture, how object relate to each other
  • Regular practice. Start with simple objects and increase. Draw from life

What’s the scientific explanation of color theory

  • Physics and biology
  • Color can simulate experience or elicit response
  • Our visual system seeks balance and harmony in color perception

What makes aesthetically pleasing, what’s the origin of positive and negative space

  • Deeply subjective and culturally influenced
  • Positive means main focus of the picture. Interplay between the two can dramatically affect the feel and effectiveness

Why people use so many medium like acrylic, oil, and watercolor, is that because technique advancement or just to represent different effect?

  • Acrylic: dry quickly, offer vibrant color
  • Oil: provide rich color and long working time
  • Watercolor: offer transparency and fluidity

3. History and Styles

  • Prehistory (40000-4000BCE)
    • Cave painting, petroglyphs, pictographs featuring animals humans and symbols
  • Ancient Civilization (3000BCE-500BCE)
    • Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman. More sophisticated drawing and painting
    • Key work: frescoes of Pompeii, tomb painting of Egypt
  • Middle Age (5th-15th century)
    • Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic Art. Characterized by religious themes
    • Key work: mosaics of Hagia Sophia
  • Renaissance (14th-17th century)
    • Revival of classical themes and humanism, development of linear perspective, enhanced realism and use of chiaroscuro (明暗对比)
    • da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael
  • Baroque and Rococo (17th-18th century)
    • Baroque: dramatic use of light and shadow, emotional intensity, movement
    • Rococo: Lighter, decorative, playful, with themes of love, nature, and leisure
    • Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Jean-Antonie Watteau
  • Modernism (Late 19th - Mid 20th Century)
    • Multiple movements exploring new approaches to art-making
      • Impressionism: Monet, focus on nature light
      • Post-Impressionism: Van Gogh, more focus on artist’s feeling
      • Cubism
      • Expressionism
      • Surrealism
    • Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Kandinsky, Dali
  • Postmodernism and Contemporary Art (Mid 20th century - Present)
    • Questioning of modernist principles, embracing of pluralism and mixed media
    • Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Damien Hirst, Banksy

4. Advanced Tech

Glazing: apply multiple thin, transparent layers

Impasto: paint thickly, creating texture and volume

Scumbling: thin layer brushed over another dry layer

Sgraffito: scratches through a top layer of paint to reveal layer, can add texture and detail

Wet-on-Wet: applying wet paint onto wet paint without waiting for successive layer to dry, allow for blending and soft edges

Underpainting: establish values and composition early on

Dry brush: show the texture of the canvas or previous paint layer

5. Practice

Pencil Sketch: fundamental stepping stone. Help develop understanding of shape, perspective, shading

Charcoal: introduce a richer depth of shading and texture, experiment different grade of charcoal

Watercolor: introduce to color and transparency. Relatively easy to setup and clean, but challenging to master due to fluid nature

Acrylic painting: mimic both watercolor and oil paint, providing a good medium to understanding paintings with colors and layering without the lengthy drying time of oils

Oil painting: rich, offer vibrant colors, allow for intricate blending techniques, one of the more traditional and challenging medium due to slow drying time and complexity

6. Four Step Paint

  1. Draw the outline, sketch
  2. Work out the details, the DIFFICULT thing first
  3. Fill out
  4. Adjust