The Artist - UK (2020-03)

56 artistMarch 2020 http://www.painters-online.co.uk

I

believe there is something about

being in the company of other

people, both friends and strangers,

that adds to our sense of humanity,

community, and belonging. As social

beings, we need relationships with

others in order to survive. I am an

introvert, but even the most introverted

of introverts need some form of

community!

Communities are groups of people

with some common element. They

are important in day-to-day life, but

Tell a compelling

story

Steve Griggs shows you how to paint figures

that will add life, movement and suggest a

narrative in your watercolour paintings

they are also the key storytellers in

many cityscape, waterscape and even

landscape paintings. I create these

communities in my paintings by using

shapes that read as human figures:

strolling, talking, riding bikes, walking

animals, sometimes even dancing. One

of the questions I’m asked most often

is how I paint figures that communicate

both movement and community.

Storylines

I add figures to a painting because they

are an essential

element to telling

a story, providing a

point of reference

for the viewer. In the

same way that our

curiosity is piqued

by seeing a group

of people gathered

on the street in

life, when we see

a group of people

in a painting, we are drawn towards

them and feel a point of connection.

We begin to ask ourselves what is

happening? Where are they going?

What they are doing? What are they

looking at? What are they feeling?

The city alone rarely tells a compelling

story. Comprised of human-created

shapes and angles, a cityscape can

be interesting in design, but it is the

people who capture the energy and

spirit of the scene. It is the people

who invite the viewer into the story

and make it interesting. My paintings

are always about capturing the energy

or spirit of a scene. Groups of people

can also be used as compositional

elements, drawing the viewer’s eye

from place to place and causing them to

stop and linger as they ponder what the

group is up to.

Scale and movement

By adding figures to a painting – in the

form of humans or animals – I provide a

 Evening on 16th Street, watercolour, 1219in (30.548cm)

t Windswept, watercolour, 2215in (5638cm).

What story is unfolding in a scene where the person in the foreground is

walking a dog but the people in the background are moving briskly?