• Special message Join us at 2 pm (Eastern) tomorrow, June 25, for our monthly YouTube Live Chat.
The topic - Varying & Repeating Color - is the same topic we will be addressing in next week's livestream workshop. It uncovers some really intriguing ways of thinking about color beyond just describing. Now and then, I wonder what we were talking about pre-Covid. One thing I remembered was an idea I discovered from painter, Lori Putman. In a Plein Air Magazine interview, she said, "Paint adjectives and adverbs, not nouns." It is such a rich concept, it's worth my repeating a post about it exactly four years ago. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PAINT NOUNS? Nouns label the subject - a tree, a bird, a face. Nouns tell you nothing about how to paint that subject. Rather than seeing the shadow patterns of a tree, you're most likely to paint some memory of treeness. Rather than finding the unique shapes within a woodpecker, you're likely to do just an outline of the bird. When we're focused on what it
is--its label--we're likely not to really see it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PAINT ADJECTIVES? If, on the other hand, you looking for degrees of values within shadow areas of a tree or a woodpecker or even a face, you begin to discover the unique characteristics caused by shadow patterns. If you focus your attention on the nuances of color changes within the shapes, you're seeing even more. These observations tell you how to paint the subject.
They guide you to see beyond the label. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO PAINT ADVERBS? Adverbs tell you what the subject is doing, how the shapes are moving. They tell you the direction of movement. Rather than just make an outline of the bird's silhouette, you begin to see directional movement of lines within the shape. You begin to feel the rhythm of the design in the feathers. Now only to you see it, you feel it! Using as your subject this photo of a horse, do a quick study in which you switch your total attention to the shadow patterns within the horse itself. Make these shadow patterns in one single value. No lines, no shape divisions. Just a pattern of shadows in one value. Enjoy a weekend of adverbs and adjectives! During my Language of Painting series, I explained the role of our visual elements. If you'd like to review those roles to better understand the behavior of elements, here are the links to each of those
discussions: Color --Value -- Shape -- Texture -- Size -- Line and Direction
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