24 artistMay 2020 http://www.painters-online.co.uk2020 VISION: 1st of 3
T
he pleasing double-numbered
arrangement of this year’s date
and its association to perfect
ocular acuity makes an apposite
title for this series on how to hone
artistic vision. My intention is to help
you see with 20/20 clarity for the rest of
2020 and beyond!
The eyes are an artist’s primary tool,
but what does it actually mean to see as
an artist? What do artists look for, what
is it that they see and then paint? And
at the end how do they see their own
painting clearly enough to assess if itSeeing patterns
Hazel Soan begins a new three-part series on how to
hone your artistic vision. This month she focuses on identifying
pattern in your subject matter
works and is, indeed, finished? These
are questions this series will address.
First, a caveat: artistic vision is unique
and subjective (thankfully), so I express
only my point of view, which is certainly
not definitive. I once tutored a weekend
workshop entitled ‘Learning to See’,
in which I tried to sum up what I had
learned during four years at art college.
It was by far the hardest workshop I
have ever taught – both for me and
the students – and I vowed never to
attempt it again! The written word is
easier to edit so, in lieu of a workshop,at the end of each article I offer a
practical exercise to help train your
artistic vision.For whom the eye sees
An artist observes with a view to making
a painting. A painting is an arrangement
of elements such as line, shape, tone
and colour, and includes esoteric things
such as contrast, mood, energy or
narrative. A painting is two-dimensional
and rarely involves a huge space, so
the figurative artist needs to notice
arrangements and patterns in the real
world that are suitable for this format,
often in the blink of an eye, even
though a painting is then made over
time. Simply put, the artist must see
from the point of view of the painting
(left).The attraction of pattern
According to anthropologists, pattern
is one of the key mechanisms that
humans notice and adopt for survival.
The recognition of patterns among the
stars, for example, enabled man to
predict seasons, navigate the globe
and eventually visit the moon. The
interpretation of geological patterns
on earth opened the Pandora’s box
of treasures that now fuel our modern
world, while economists compile
patterns of manmade data to know
when to invest in them! Pattern is
woven into the fabric of society. It is not Umbrella Company, oil on canvas, 20 3 20in
(51 3 51cm).
A painting, whether figurative or abstract, is
a flat pattern made of tones, shapes, colours,
and textures. Here, alternate dark and light
tones march across the canvas from side to
side, with reflections used to endorse the
vertical ‘stripe’ and the slanting elliptical
shapes of the umbrellas positioned to cross
the horizontal axes. If the visual pattern works
for the viewer, the result is pleasing to the eye.
Colours used: titanium white, Mars black,
ultramarine blue, light red, Indian yellow,
cadmium red