Last month, we talked about placement of canvas and of the focal image on that canvas. Now, we discuss two important “rules” – one is another means of doing that initial sketch and analyzing what you’ll be painting, while the other addresses the number of objects on the canvas.

The Rule of Thirds is a grid system that can accomplish two means:

1. It can be used as a grid for transferring your image to the canvas.
2. It helps you see and understand the focus and flow of your image.

To create the grid, place two vertical and two horizontal lines equally on the canvas to create a 3 squares x 3 squares grid, like this:

Pretty simple. Now let’s place this over our infamous onion line drawing (can’t get enough of that onion!):

If you were using this grid to draw your lines, then you can see how the grid itself helps you to place those initial scratches, one square at a time. This grid system is an age-old tool. In fact, if you’ve ever seen the movie “Artemisia” (in which all the Italians depicted in this German-produced movie actually speak in French), you can see this tool in actual use. A frame, on which evenly placed string creates the grid, is placed in front of the artist’s focal image.

If we review the gridded onion, we can analyze how the lines then “fill up” and express themselves in each individual “square”. The center of the onion is at the center of the grid, but essentially the center spills up and through the top-right, middle-right, and bottom-right squares of the grid, adding a dynamic motion as compared to the relatively “calm” left-side squares. (In fact, if you want to play with abstracts, you can always focus only one of these squares to paint.)

You can also move the grid lines around, like this:

I cropped the original drawing to just the middle-top, center, right-top, and center-right squares of the original sketch. I then applied the Rules of Thirds grid to that cropped image. The center of the onion has now moved to the lower-left square and spills up and through the center and all three right-hand squares – an extremely dynamic image with little to no calming space. See the difference?

Here’s a couple links about the Rule of Thirds:

• Art Composition Rules for Painting by Marion Boddy-Evans
• The Rule of Thirds: Why it Works and How to use it in your Art by EmptyEasel.com

Now to my favorite rule because I’m an oddball by nature: Rule of Thirds. Short and sweet:

• Keep the number of objects to an odd number, not an even number.

Why? Humans are naturally symmetrical. We are constantly looking for the two columns in front of the building, the ying to the yang, the peanut butter to the jelly, which means “even number”. Without that “evenness”, the viewer’s eye will continue roving around the painting looking for it. This rule works to keep the viewer looking at your painting for longer than a few minutes.

So for your practice this month, I have another image for you (thank God! Drop the onion already!):

Now there’s a lot going on in here – that’s the point. So let’s play with the two rules. (If you click on this image, it will take you to my website, where you can access just the image.)

Using this full image and a ruler:

• Draw your 3×3 square grid.
• Ask: How do the objects in this image flow from square-to-square?

Select 4 adjacent squares and use that to crop this full image:

• Looking at this new image, use a ruler and draw a new 3×3 square grid.
• How has the flow or movement of the objects changed?
• Is it a better version of the original image?
• Count the number of objects – is this an odd or even number?
• If it is an even number, can you “block out” an object to make the number odd? If so, how does the image read now?

Since there’s so much going on with this original image, you can play with this grid as much as you want.

When you get an image that you’re satisfied with, try using the grid to sketch your image. To use the grid:

1. Draw over your printed image to create the basic lines. You want “just the facts”.
2. Lightly draw your 3×3 square grid on your paper or canvas.
3. Use the grid lines to transfer your basic lines of the image to your paper or canvas.
4. Then go ahead and paint, using the color practice that we’ve done the past few months. If you drew your grid lines lightly and you’re using acrylic paint, you may not need to erase them. (Of course, that depends on whether you are using a transparent or opaque color – remember?)

Next month, I’ll show you want I’ve done with this image.

Currently, I have three boards – Art I Like, Gotta Laugh, and Inspiration. During the next few weeks, I’ll be creating more boards, along the line of alternative venues for artists, children’s education, and painting\artistic resources.

For the past few months, we’ve been playing with color – to understand which colors are your “friends” and how many different variations you can make with them. Now we move on to the other “c” word – composition. Let’s start simple.

The best description I’ve found about basic composition came from Mary Todd Beam in Celebrate your Creative Self. These basic simple forms relate to how you position your canvas (either vertical or horizontal) and then how you position your focal image onto that. Are you with me? Before I continue, let me introduce you to some terms that I’ll be using:

• Horizon line = It is exactly what it says – a line drawn horizontally across your canvas. When we look at a sunrise, the sun is literally at the horizon, so this is where our eye hits. But where we place that horizon line against a vertically- or horizontally-placed canvas affects how the viewer reacts to your subject.
• Halfway horizontal mark = an imaginary line that equally cuts the canvas in half horizontally
• Halfway vertical mark = an imaginary line that equally cuts the canvas in half vertically

Basic compositional examples:

Turn your canvas so that the longest side is vertical. This works well with 9″x12″, 11″x14″, etc., canvases. If you place the “horizon line” above the halfway horizontal mark of your canvas, the viewer thinks high and tall. Look at a tree, a lighthouse, Stonehenge, what do you think? You think not only high, but also sturdy, rising, solid. Your eye literally is reaching toward the focal point of the image. In this example, the setting sun focuses our attention and then our eye draws down to the reflection in the water that seemingly leads toward us. Afterward, our eyes reach back across the expanse of water directly toward the sun in the distance.

Keep your canvas so that the longest side is still vertical. But this time, place the “horizon line” below the halfway horizontal mark of your canvas. The focal image is now weighted firmly to the bottom of the canvas. Think of throwing a feather up in the air, what does it do? It floats down (thanks to good ole’ gravity) until it comes to rest against the ground. Rather than soaring upward (like a tree) in the last image, this image brings the viewer down to rest. The sun appears closer to us now with the sky looming high overhead. The sun appears small compared to the vast height of the sky.

Overall, the vertical placement of your canvas implies specific, targeted direction because the focal point has only that vertical straight line of the canvas to move around in. The focal point can really only move up or down; there’s very little side-by-side movement.

Now let’s turn our canvas so that the longest side is horizontal and play with that horizon line.

Put that “horizon line” above the midway point of your horizontal canvas. The focal point is still high but now it has a lot of horizontal “breathing” space on either side. Think about the ocean or the desert. The sun here appears tiny compared to the “vastness” of the ocean.

Lastly, put the “horizon line” below the midway point of your horizontal canvas. The focal point is low but there’s so much more sky above it, to the point that the viewer almost seems to be looking down on it.

You might have heard from other artists not to place any focal point directly in the middle of the canvas. That would be here exactly where the halfway horizontal and halfway vertical points intersect. If you can imagine our sun right there with an equal amount of sky and water, what do you get? Boring! Snooze-a-roni!

The viewer has no “pull” from the focal image to tell him\her how to “read” the painting.

That said, there’s probably something that you-all noticed when I painted the above simple images. While the focal point (sun) moved above or below the halfway horizontal mark of the canvas, I kept the sun situated exactly at the halfway vertical mark of the canvas. Now I wonder what would happen if I start moving the focal point either right or left of that halfway vertical mark in each?

And that’s your art play for this month! You will use these same four horizon line plays that I used:

• vertical canvas – high focal point
• vertical canvas – low focal point
• horizontal canvas – high focal point
• horizontal canvas – low focal point

BUT, for each one, imagine a halfway vertical mark, and paint two separate practices with the image either to the right or left of that halfway vertical mark. By the end, you should have the following 8 practice studies done:

1. vertical canvas – high focal point – to the right
2. vertical canvas – high focal point – to the left
3. vertical canvas – low focal point – to the right
4. vertical canvas – low focal point – to the left
5. horizontal canvas – high focal point – to the right
6. horizontal canvas – high focal point – to the left
7. horizontal canvas – low focal point – to the right
8. horizontal canvas – low focal point – to the left

While you’re at it, don’t forget your color practice. Pick two colors, either truly cool or warm. I used Pthalo Blue and Cadmium Red Medium (blue for the water; red for the sun; and a combo of each for the sky). Also, keep your focal image simple. You can do the implied sunrise that I used or just a simple block on an implied table. If you keep your image simple, then you’ll concentrate less on the image detail and more on the compositional implications.

You are invited to the Artist Reception for this exhibition on Thursday, April 4 from 5-9pm. See map below for location.

Last month, we talked about cool and warm colors and how the placement of these colors on a canvas can “trick the eye” to bring areas toward or away from the viewer. By the way, artist Carol A. McIntyre just completed a blog entry about cool and warm colors. Here’s what she says in her blog.

This month, we’re tackling two subjects, how to make a color darker or lighter AND do you begin laying dark colors or light colors first?

Let’s tackle the “how to make the color darker or lighter”. Now when we did our monochromatic study in December, I had you using Titanium White. Typically, when we think lighter or darker, we think about adding white for lightness or black for darkness. But that really is making it overly simple. You may have noticed that when I used Titanium White with my Cadmium Red Hue that it actually made my warm red very cool. White cools down colors, plain and simple, while black muddies them. Okay, why is that?

Well, it comes from the fact that white and black really do contain other colors that can interfere with the purity and vibrancy of the color that you’re using. Titanium White will actually mute the vibrancy of a color. And if that’s what you want to achieve in a painting – okay. But if you use it throughout all colors in a painting, then areas of your painting may come out looking a bit flat – as you could see from my monochromatic where I’ve mixed the Cadmium Red Hue with the Titanium White to create the darker bubblegum pink (color #3 on my recipe card):

Titanium White is also opaque. So if you mix this white with a transparent color, it will turn your transparent color into an opaque color – thus you lose the transparency that maybe you actually want to keep. So what about black? Well, black muddies a color because its intensity can overwhelm the color you’re mixing it into. Also, depending on the black you use, it can have other colors – like blue – which can increase the muddiness if it’s added to a secondary color that does not include blue.

So how can you lighten or darken and still keep vibrancy? That’s where knowing your basic secondary color mixing comes in handy. For example, you know that yellow and blue make green. Well, to lighten a green, try mixing the lighter color (i.e. yellow) into the green (instead of white). Likewise, to darken that green – you got it, try mixing in the darker color (i.e. blue). If the green that you have was created by you actually combining a yellow and a blue paint from your palette, then mixing more of one color than the other will accomplish the light or dark version. If you have a color that’s already “premixed” (like Sap Green), then you’ll need to experiment a little. Again, knowing if that green is a warm or cool version will help. For example, let’s say you have a cool green and want to keep it cool when you lighten it – then go with a cool yellow.

(Just for giggles, I did an online search on what colors are in Sap Green. The Golden Paints website said: “This was achieved by blending Transparent Red Iron Oxide, Nickel Azo Yellow, Phthalo Green Yellow Shade and adding a tiny amount of Carbon Black to get a deep yellow green.” Aha – so if you have Golden Paints Sap Green, try to lighten with Nickel Azo Yellow; if you want to darken, try the Phthalo Green Yellow Shade. Get it?)

Yes, all of this color mixing takes a little thought in the beginning. But after doing it a while – and refining your color palette in the process – it will become second nature to you. If you have a lot of colors and are feeling overwhelmed, just concentrate on three primary colors, all cool or all warm, and work just with them. Marion Boddy-Evans, of About.com Painting, has a wonderful article on creating such a “limited palette”. Again, when you’re starting out, baby steps are a good thing.

So – “to begin light or not to begin light. That is the question. ‘Tis nobler to begin dark…” Ya, leave it to Shakespeare to give voice to the complicated. But actually it’s not as complicated as you think. It depends on your preference and the outcome. How about that for a wishy-washy answer. Truth is, you do get a very different outcome when you begin with light colors or dark colors.

Jacob Taxis on About.com Painting posted a video in which he paints from dark colors to light colors. His overall final image is dark or moody or shadowy – or however you want to phrase it – with very clearly defined color areas. His method of dark-to-light is a classical way of painting. You end by putting in the highlights.

But what do you do when you want your painting to be – and feel – lighter? Aha – that’s where some of the impressionists turned everything on its ear. (No pun intended to Van Gogh.) They began with the lights and ended with the darks. So, in classical terms, you’re actually working backwards. I used this method in my self-portrait, so you can look at my video version. Now keep in mind while watching my video: every new image of my portrait was a stopping point where I let the paint dry completely. Allowing the paint to dry maintained the clean colors without any “muddying” or accidental “lightening” of colors due to inadvertent mixing on the canvas.

So your assignment for this month is back to the onion, but this will be the last time:

1. Take our good old onion photo.
2. Paint two studies of it:

• One study dark-to-light: Paint the darks and lights in areas the way Jacob Taxis does in his video.
• One study light-to-dark: First, block out the entire onion what would become your highlight color, and then work backwards from there toward the dark end.

After completing these two studies, you should know which version (dark-to-light or light-to-dark) gives you the most satisfaction. When you know, just paint the colors on your future canvases in that order.

Now that we are more comfortable with color and how you get it on the canvas, next month we’ll tackle composition – in other words, how viewers “read” your painting.