Hello, welcome back to my studio.
In this video, I'm going to share one
of my top tips for simplifying any painting subject.
Now, one of the things every artist struggles with at some point is how
to tame the massive amount of shapes and details in any scene.
One of the tips I like to give artists is
to use pattern to help them come to grips with any subject.
Now, when you look at a scene, you can see a lot of shapes.
If you regard each of those shapes as
part of a big pattern. One that you could perhaps pick out
7 to 10 shapes and use those shapes as the structure for a pattern.
Working with a pattern can be really exciting and a lot of fun as well.
And if you're not so sure about what I'm saying, think about artists like
post-Impressionist, like Paul Cezanne. Pattern was extremely important in his
paintings and he would look for those patterns.
Other famous artists around about that time?
Think about Vincent Van Gogh paintings filled with pattern. Paul Gauguin as well.
A lot of pattern in his work.
And they were
all sort of influenced to some degree by Japanese art, Japanese patterns.
So pattern is a major part of our heritage in painting.
Now, you can use those techniques to simply look for the pattern
in your subjects and put that down using big brush strokes, lots of paint.
That works for oils, acrylics, gouache, even pastels.
Any sort of opaque medium can can really benefit from this.
And you may find that that's all you need.
With some exciting colors and a strong pattern
you could turn it into an abstract.
You could make any sort of two dimensional
pattern to it, a graphic design or use color that creates three dimensions
and perspective as well and have a very simplified but strong painting.
This method can help you see the patterns in nature and see your subject
in simpler terms.
It can also be an excellent way for you to get into a painting.
To start it off in a strong fashion and then decide how far you want to go.
Maybe it's almost finished by the time you're finished putting in your pattern.
Now, let's have a look at this scene here.
You can see the reference photo on the right hand side.
Sort of a courtyard scene with a tree in it, an orange tree.
But I'm not worried about oranges and leaves and branches.
I'm just getting the big mass of those leaves as one big shape.
And looking for the pattern. Now, I've got to do the wall behind it,
and all I really want for these shapes is to try and get the
value more or less correct, the light or darkness of it,
and then just put it down as quickly as possible.
And with big brush strokes.
The bit of sky at the top is just another shape in the pattern.
Kind of like a jigsaw puzzle that you're building using your brush.
I'm using a big brush as well.
And here you can see the color
I'm using. This sort of cool violet. So you can use expressive colors if you want.
You can change it up
completely.
Reverse the colors, whatever you choose, because you are putting down a pattern and
it doesn't really matter about the colors. How expressive or you want to make it.
That's totally up to you.
But the idea is don't get bogged down in all the massive amounts of little shapes.
This door is quite intricate too,
but look out for the squares and the rectangles and put those down.
You can always come back in
and add the details or refine the shapes if you want a more detailed painting.
So it's totally up to you and working out a pattern gives you a lot of options.
It also is teaching you how to see shapes.
And that's why I choose this approach with many of my students who struggle
to simplify and see the big shapes in a scene.
The pathway, very simple shape once again.
And the tree trunks.
That could keep you busy for ages if you sweated over the details,
but by looking quickly and working
quickly, obviously I have sped this up a bit, but you can still do this very quickly.
You're less likely to get confused by the intricacy of what's going on.
Just putting a few highlights in there, just because I want to really.
You can leave those out, of course. And then you can decide
how much you want to add to the painting or leave it as it is.
I can go in different directions.
This is the one option.
I can develop it another way.
I hope this tip is going to give you
something to work on and make some strides in your own painting as well.
Also, be sure to check out the videos
suggested in the end roll that will also be related to this idea.
Well, have a great time with your painting and until next time, cheers for now.