by Lena Rivo 1 ABSTRACT APPROACH Using an abstract approach to painting - even if you are a representative artist - is a great way to make your work look cleaner, stronger and more expressive. When you forget what your subject represents and instead try to see it as a set of definite shapes of color you become able to work faster and produce paintings that are simple, yet eloquent. I approach any subject as an abstract pattern of patches of color, always trying to think in terms of shape, form, color and line. I try not to think about the objects I am depicting. With this approach every shape in your painting becomes only a light suggestion of something, not a detailed copy of the object. 1 The largest and most obvious shapes 2 Medium and small shapes 2 FROM LARGE TO SMALL When you perceive your subject as a puzzle made of pieces of different sizes and colors you should be able to divide the scene in front of you into three different sets of large, medium and small shapes. This will make it much easier for you to decide what to include into the painting and what to leave aside. I always work from large to small, trying to simplify the composition into a few recognizable shapes and values. The structure of a painting can be achieved very quickly when you use a large brush and start with your larger shapes and masses. 3 Tiny details 3 LOCAL COLOR This one is my favorite! Local color is the natural color of an object without the effect of light and shadow i.e. the color we usually name things with - a red dress, a yellow umbrella, a green leaf… Strong light often distorts local colors of objects, making them look washed out in the light and almost black in the shadow. But an artist can ignore the destructive effects of light and make the color rich in the light as well as in the shadow. In the painting at the right, the light blue color of the girl’s blouse stays strong in the light and is recognizable in the shadow (I only made it slightly grayer in the shadow). In reality, because of all the reflected light and highlights, the color of the blouse seemed pale in the light and darker in the shadow, but I didn’t let the sunlight wash this gorgeous color out and painted the blouse as I wanted it to be. That is the same way I treated all the other colors in this painting. With this quick sketch I wanted to show you that it isn’t always necessary to make colors lighter in order to convey the illusion of light in a painting. 4 HARD AND SOFT EDGES Painting demands a constant effort to make some things stand out and other things to merge. Hard edges reinforced with a strong value contrast (light against dark or vice versa), immediately attract the viewer’s attention so you can use them to lead the viewer’s eyes throughout the painting. Soft edges create connections between adjacent shapes, make boundaries disappear and are great to add depth and an atmosphere to the painting. By varying your edges, you can achieve a dimensional quality in your painting. Soft edges can also be used in the areas you don’t want the viewer to look at. I really love to work with edges in painting and this is the main reason why I prefer traditional gouache to acrylic gouache - I can soften any edge at any time! I am sure you will easily spot some soft and hard edges in this painting. Warm Green Cool Green 5 Cool Red Warm Gray Warm Red Cool Gray WARM AND COOL SIDE BY SIDE If you, like me, often paint from life, you might have noticed that cool and warm colors can be found everywhere in the real world: a warm reflected light can often be observed inside a cool shadow; on a white sand lit by a warm sunlight you can easily find a hint of coolness coming from the sky. When you place warm and cool colors next to each other in a painting it creates a nice color vibration, makes the objects in your painting look more real and fills the painting with air. These warm and cool colors shouldn’t necessarily be complete opposites however. They can belong to the same family of colors, but one of them should be cooler or warmer than the other. For example, in this painting I placed a cool green next to a warm green on the leaves of the plant; a cool red next to a warm red on the pot, and a cool gray next to a warm gray in the large shadow. The difference in temperature between these colors can be very small but the viewer will still feel that subtle vibration and get unconsciously attracted to the painting. 6 DIAGONALS AND ZIGZAGS Painters do not always have time and opportunity to arrange objects in the scene into a perfect composition. Often times we only have to decide on the point of view and the scale, and we don't want to spend a lot of time composing. We want to paint! I am usually so excited about the subject and eager to start painting that I can give only a few minutes to myself to think about the composition. After years of painting, my basic rule when it comes to composing a picture has become looking for diagonals, zigzags and their intersections in the subject. These can make any composition look more dynamic. The coolest thing about this rule is that your diagonals and zigzags should not necessarily be features observed in your subject; they can be just imaginary lines drawn along the sides of the objects in the scene. Diagonals and zigzags help achieve a sense of space, perspective and movement in the painting, while their intersections create a tension that fills your work with energy. 7 CAREFULLY CHOSEN DETAIL Details are "your last word" in a painting. They can make your painting sing. They can reveal the beauty of your subject in its full strength. Too much detail can destroy a painting. Details should be chosen carefully and put only in the places you want the viewer's eye to move through. If you paint small dots and fine lines all over your canvas or paper you will lose the sense of atmosphere and perspective in the painting. I use a small brush for details and usually add them on top of an almost finished painting at the very last stage of work. I put them only in the areas of interest - the places that are supposed to attract the viewer’s attention. You have to be mindful of the details, both in terms of quantity and quality. 8 PAINTING FROM LIFE The world we live in is amazingly beautiful. The colors and tones observed in nature cannot be captured by any digital device, so if you really want to see an ultimate beauty in your paintings you need to learn how things look in reality. To do so, you have to paint from life from time to time. Flowers in a vase on a windowsill, your own reflection in a mirror, your room…anything around you can become a decent subject to paint. When the weather is fine you can go to a park and make a couple of small sketches. By painting from life you explore the true colors and value relationships of nature so when you decide to paint from a photo your “plein air” painting experience should allow you to spot the areas in the photo that aren't corresponding to reality and you will be able to correct them. In this set of images you can see my paintings done on location and the photographs I took at the same time from the same spot. You can clearly see how different the photographs are from what I actually saw with my eyes at the moment. I would have never been able to make these same paintings if I had had to use these photographs for reference. Lena Rivo Hi, I am Lena Rivo! I am a professional painter who teaches enthusiastic artists how to capture the beauty of the subjects that inspire them. I help my students convey the illusion of light and atmosphere in their paintings and get the most from the colors on their palette. The fundamental principles that I teach are universal and can be applied to any painting medium be it oil, acrylics, soft pastels, watercolor or gouache. Having used gouache for several years now, it has gradually become my favorite painting medium. Its vibrant, deep and solid colors give me full freedom to capture the beauty of nature. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GOUACHE FREE GUIDE If you want to learn about my color palette and the painting equipment I use with gouache download my free guide full of valuable information and useful tips. DOWNLOAD THE FREE GUIDE THANKS FOR READING! YOU CAN FIND ME ON Copyright © 2020 Lena Rivo. All rights reserved.
