http://www.painters-online.co.uk artistDecember 2019 43Why pattern is
important
Capture your viewers’ attention by introducing
pattern when designing your paintings, as
Bob Brandt explains
T
he Fibonacci series is a set of
numbers that was explored
by Indian mathematicians
in the sixth century but only
introduced to the western world by
Fibonacci, a mathematician from Pisa,
in 1202. In that series, each number
is created by adding together the two
numbers before it. Starting with 1, the
series therefore runs: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13,
21 and so on, and the significance of
this series is that it is frequently found
in natural objects, like the petals and
seeds in a flower head or the growth of
nautilus shells. The series is also linked
to the proportions observed in the
Golden Rectangle.
It is hard to know whether John Ruskinu Exhibition Visitors, oil on canvas panel,
2323 232in (60 3 60cm).
In the January 2015 issue of The Artist
I described the value of using shadows
efectively when designing a painting,
and shadows linked with shaded surfaces
certainly contribute signiicantly to the
design of this painting. But the underlying
pattern is provided by the tiled loor. These
two elements together create the illusion
of the space, and the spaces through which
the visitors move. The two brightly coloured
pictures in the sunlit area and the small group
looking at them – approximately placed on
the ‘golden intersection’ within the painting- create a focus for attention from which the
viewer can work around the rest of the scene
was aware of the relevance of the
numbers when he wrote his hugely
influential Elements of Drawing (1856–7).
In one passage he shows drawings of a
series of clumps of leaves, describing
clumps of three or five leaves as being
‘prettier’ than a clump of two. Some
designs do seem to be more attractive
than others, but it is easy to fall into
the trap of trying to rationalise on
some kind of scientific basis why this
may be so. The fact remains that we
find looking at patterns of shapes,
colours and collections of objects
interesting, and this interest in patterns
for their own sake has led to the
development of distinctive branches
of fine art, including the geometricalabstractionism of Victor Vasarely and
Bridget Riley and of course Maurits
Escher. Apart from his well-known
drawings of ‘impossible’ buildings and
staircases, it is worth looking at the
many black-and-white designs he made
in which one set of shapes morphs into
another, for example a flight of ducks
merging into a school of fish.
Using an arrangement of colours and
shapes to entrance the eye also plays
its part when designing predominantly
representational pictures, so when we
have chosen a particular subject or
scene to paint, perhaps the next step
might be to consider how this could
be incorporated into a pleasing and
interesting pattern that fills the canvas.Bob Brandt
is a full-time artist, teacher and writer. He
is a past president of the Institute of East
Anglian Artists. His paintings are in many
collections, including the National Trust
and in recent years he has exhibited with
the Royal Institute of Oil Painters and the
Royal Society of Marine Artists.
http://www.clockhousestudio.co.ukw