HAPPY NEW YEAR!  HAPPY PAINTING!

In Richard Schmid's introduction to his second edition of Alla Prima, he says, "I have tried to avoid rules of any kind..."  

If you have studied with me for any length of time, you've heard me rant against rules. The notion that to be a good painter you have to know "the rules" echoes from the stuffy European academies reaching back as far as nearly five hundred years ago. This is when the first academy for instruction, the Accademia del Disegno (“Academy of Design”), was established in 1563 in Florence by the grand duke Cosimo I de' Medici at the nudge of the painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari. 

WHAT IS A RULE, ANYWAY?

Google the word "rule" as a noun and you will discover that most of the reputable dictionaries define it as pertaining to a game. That makes sense because without rules, there's no way to determine how a game works. 

Merriam-Webster adds "Some common synonyms of rule are canon, law, ordinance, precept, regulation, and statute. All these words mean a principle governing action or procedure." 

Yep, that sounds about right!  But don't blame Vasari for the rules' notion weaving its nasty little head into how art should be created.  Instead, blame the cultural element that thrives on trying to dominate the rest of us.  It happens in all disciplines humans undertake. 

If we artists accept that as gospel, we lose our freedom to create.

Illustration by Mohamed_hassan from Pixabay.com

THE GOOD NEWS!

We know that the works of Michelangelo and Leonardo and all master artists have unity, order, balance, harmony, rhythm, proportion, and visual movement, so if these artists weren't following rules to get these results, what were they doing? They were looking for cause and effect.  Every single principle I listed is the outcome of action taken rather than a rule being applied.

It's not complicated:  For learning every skill we acquire, for mastering every principle we study, there one simple question--what will happen if I do this? 

We observe how things work visually in the world around us.  We become mindful of how our eyes respond and how our mind and emotions are stimulated by what we see. The more we discover and experience, the more we find there is to see. 

Therein lies unlimited potential for creating masterful paintings!

Light and Shadow: The one thing that lets our eyes see.
Visual Movement: What our eyes do when images are visible.
Seeing Beyond the Image: The possibilities beyond just describing what our eyes see.
Freeing the Artist Within (Curiosity): Finding our individual interpretation to what our eyes are seeing. 
Composing:  Finding ways to put together all that we discover.
Drawing:  Searching the potential of images.
The Craft:  Continually forging our skills to visually communicate what we continue to discover with our eyes, mind and soul.

And the eighth:

The Art:  The results when all the above are working together.