Composition, Color, & Contrast

"Bobber Stare Down" - (3/6)

Author: Larry Seiler, Contributing Editor

We are attempting here to take ground pigments and create the illusion that sunlight creates. It is not easy, but it is that which fancies us as artists and becomes, "the GAME" we love to play. So, you have to take advantage of every facility possible. Darker values against the lighter, warmer colors against the cooler, greyed or neutralized pigment versus purity in chroma, etc. Another important contrast feature I played to the hilt here was to create a useful and believable background that would place the subject solidly into existence, and yet not draw attention to itself. Robert Henri, in his book "The Art Spirit" speaks a great deal about developing such a background to make successful portraits and is well worth the reading and contemplation. The rule I aspire to is to look at the subject's head, and judge the background as to how it appears while looking at the subject. Periphally.

When I did that...I sensed a playing down of detail, a blurring of edges. It is just uninteresting enough that it assures me that the viewer will find by comparison the subject THAT much more of interest. Again..its that "everybody shouting" thing I mentioned earlier. Young artists tend to want to prove how clever and capable they are, and want to spell out all the detail, but in so doing they leave the work appear flat. Not enough contrasts to create the illusion of depth. Hold your hand up in the air and look at the back of it. While doing so, note how objects behind appear periphally. Begin to do keep that in mind with your paintings and you'll work less on backgrounds and convince the viewer it had MORE detail! Another tip to assure eyes stay where you want them too, that is on your subject is to reserve purest color, lightest lights and darkest darks for your subject. Another device I used to make the picture interest was introduce visual tension with the pictoral balance. The majority of the weight of the masses is to the right of the vertical center of the painting. Arguably, it should NOT work. Yet appears to. Why? It is taking advantage of the psychology of the viewer by strongly implying some significant action is taking place out of view to the far left of the visible work, namely the bobber. It manipulates even the frame of the picture to act as a sort of window pane, as though we are looking out at a real time action. We assume the rod continues behind the left's edge. The intense stare of the eyes we assume are fixed on the bobber. The brim of the hat pointing as well to the left, and the leading shoreline going off to the left. All the work sits heavy on the right side of the painting, but all unconscious focus is to the left. Such psychological pull acts as a counter balancing weight visually. I spent a good amount of time planning out the cap, using areas to reflect the color of the sky, always careful that surrounding background was lighter or darker than that piece of the cap. Even the red "C" upon close-up inspection reveals an attempt to reflect some sky color on the far side of the letter.

This to imploy effective perspective and add to the illusion of making a flat surface appear as three-dimensional.

[ Previous Page ] [ Next Page ]