ANNOUNCEMENTS:

•We just added another new Academy course, Exploring Tertiary Colors.  Throughout the month of May it will be on sale for 50% off!  (NOTE: If you took the workshop, the instruction is the same.)

•Our May workshop is Placing Shapes Meaningfully. There are still a few spaces open.  

Occasionally, I go into my archives to see if there's a post that has enough legs to get recycled.  This one that I've dusted off and spruced up a bit comes from four years ago.

How often do we pay attention to what our eyes do when we look at a painting, or even when we make observations in our daily living? We use our eyes to find our way around, to see what we are doing, and to glance at things that get our attention, but do we register the cause of how our eyes see?

As artists, what we discover about how we are seeing can be used to make stronger paintings by emphasizing, playing down, or using our discovery as a creative tool. After all, that is how the golden mean and the visual principles we have today got discovered--simple, acute observation.

An edge in a painting is like a pause between two musical phrases: it marks the ending of one shape and the beginning of another, both negative and positive. How we paint these determines the speed with which our eyes move across it.

The sharper edges abruptly delay or stop the eye.  The softer edges act as a bridge that takes the eye gently from one shape to another. The lost edges act like path that keeps the eye moving without a pause.

Look at how all three kinds of edges are illustrated in a still life painting by Qiang Huang. 

Qiang has used all three of these behaviors in his bunch of grapes. 

Notice in the next frame the difference in how your eyes behave looking at the A area compared to the B area. Cursor back up to the original photo, close your eyes, then open them and notice which of those areas they go to first. Also, focus on the center lime at the bottom, then notice how the lime behind it takes you to the left side of the painting.  

LET'S INVITE THE EYE TO PARTICIPATE

Our eyes want to participate, to become involved in paintings we view. They want to be challenged, not spoon fed. When an artist uses just enough sharp edges to bring us into the painting and take us from place to place, then employs soft and lost edges, our eyes become involved. We feel like we've been invited to become a part of what the painting is all about.

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.