Special Message: Since my accident, I have received multiple cards in the mail and so many messages in my inbox, each wishing me a quick recovery. Thanks to all of
you! My bones are healing nicely and outpatient PT begins Monday. I'll keep you updated as I can. Meanwhile, today enjoy this encore from March of last year. Dianne When you look at a work of a master painter, do you notice what the artist did to influence how you see it? One way we can discover what an artist has done to guide our eyes is to change elements of the work to see how the change effects the painting. Let's do that experiment with Sargent's Seascape. Below are two versions. The one labeled A is hashed to obscure part of Sargent's emphasis. The other one labeled B is Sargent's actual painting. Close your eyes for about 3 seconds, then open them and look only at A on the left. Pay attention to the direction your eyes go first. Then do the same for B. In my hashed version of A, I took away the breaking waves above the rocks. Most likely, not having those there caused your eye to move back and forth between the strong cloud reflection in the sea and the light splashes on the frontal rocks,
perhaps included the bright cloud in the sky. Your eye, then, is moving in an vertical direction, back and forth. The strong value contrast of the breaking waves in Sargent's real version creates an emphasis above both rocks that attracks the eyes, and plays the role of pulling the eye among the four points of strongest value contrast. The eye is now
moving in a sort of diamond shaped path. The stronger the value contrast, the quick the eyes will move to it. The closer the value contrast, the more smoothly your eyes move from one area to another. That is one method master artists use for creating emphasis and guiding the viewer's eyes. Click on the button below to go over to a collection of Andrew Wyeth's paintings. As you direct your eyes to view each piece for a few moments, pay attention how Wyeth used this composing principle. Enjoy a delightful weekend of discovering degrees of emphasis!
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Happy Painting,
Dianne
dianne@diannemize.com
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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
You can access the archive of all my newsletters (as well as the Quick Tips and other stuff) at any time by going HERE.
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