The Secret to Simplification
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- Опубліковано 22 бер 2021
- As I said last week, so many students are bedevilled by what to do with detail. Mainly because everything looks like detail.
This week I paint the same image as last week, but this time 16" x 20". As you get bigger the thinking goes, well I need more detail to fill all that space and make it look interesting.
In the demonstration, I continue to paint to the same thumbnail, or roadmap, and you'll see without adding more detail that roadmap continues to serve me well.
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I'm not a painter, never painted. I'm a composer and recording engineer with a channel devoted to those, and watching this channel I continue to be astounded at how the constructs and principles of engaging visual composition mirror, almost to the letter, the constructs and principles of engaging music production. Contrast, depth, selective detail, grabbing and guiding someone's focus, maintaining their attention thru movement... it's all the same. Amazing, and amazingly well taught. Thanks for what you do. 👍🏻
Yes, art is the balance how line, value, form, light and shadow creates composition and dynamic. Just like in music there is melody, in art you have line. You can have a low contrast values in a painting and create different visual feeling like pianissimo. Or you can blast the colors in full with expressive brush strokes...It all depends how deep the artists thinks about what they are doing. And yes, some don't think much...
Hello Ian thank you so much for making learning painting simple, at 80, time is if essence i want to have fun painting while I still have life, no time for fluff. My favorite is pastel and I'm applying your suggestions and what a difference my paintings look and how much I enjoyed doing them, thank you for your knowledge and the time you take to share, I'm glad I stumbled on your channel.
You have a special gift as a teacher! Your ability to simplify a composition and lead the eye is phenomenal. Thank you.
This is the most common sense painting class I have discovered. Thank you so much.
Finding simple shapes and correct values is the most difficult thing to do . Your teaching help me a lot. Thank you very much Sir.
I'm delighted you are getting a lot out of the videos Meena. All the best.
I just started following you & as a beginner I really appreciate your ability to explain what you’re doing. The length of the videos is just right, as there is a lot for a novice to process. Thank you for taking the time to do this!
Ian - Thank you for demystifying how to work with landscape paintings.... I enjoy most of the work I paint, but when it comes to landscapes I'm overwhelmed and often do not like what I have painted.. yet it has become more important and I want to tackle larger canvases! I subscribed and so happy to have found your videos! Thank you for such clarity in instruction! WOW!
I like how you divide the elements of the painting into simple shapes to simplify. A simple yet effective way of explaining it. Thank you for a great lesson & greetings from Denmark.
HI Danish Painter, greetings from LA. Delighted you enjoyed the video. Best wishes.
Oh, I really like that painting, the burst of warm colors against all the cool is just beautiful.
Thank you: you are a natural educator. This was an eye opener: I always get lost in the details, dappled lights, sky holes... I lose the overall shapes that attracted me to the composition!
Hi Maria-Dolores, I used your comment on this week's video about filling the big shapes with little bits of detail. Thank you. Glad you are enjoying the videos.
Shapes! Preparing for my 1st commission . . . picture has mountains in the background, meadow & trees in middle-ground, water and reflections in foreground. When you were talking about shapes & rectangles, I thought, aha! Triangles! These mtns. are simply triangles, the meadow spaces are rectangles, and the individual conifers smaller triangles. The whole picture can be broken into simple shapes! Thank you for that. You just made this project much less intimidating.
Good luck with it Debra.
Thank you for this - I have shared it and 3 of your other videos with members of my local art club this evening. We all thought they were excellent and very clear.
You are the best!! So grateful for you!! I had some great art professors during college years ( 35 some years ago) but, I have been ( re) learning so much from you ( more than most of 5 years studying) in your videos and books to take my artwork to a place that I am so happy to be headed! TY 🙏🏼 and I will be sharing your channel and books with others.
Your drawings are always an inspiration Ian and well worth watching over and over, or they certainly are to me, they are always a good reminder of what and how we should be thinking, many thanks, Kind Regards. Neil
Thanks Ian for another generous and informative video.
With plein air, I’m now focusing on seeing “shapes” and patterns of simpler shapes instead of trees, rivers, mountains. Really changes the way you start looking for a composition!
That is great news Catherine.
I am just learning to paint. Wish I found you a long time ago. Excellent videos and information. I bought about 25 different brushes...and you are using a $.69 cent brush from the hardware store. Amazing.
I see your email pop up in my feed and I think "Wonderful! It's Ian day!" Thank you!
Yeah, Ian day. That makes me happy. Thank you.
Thanks for this video. I love how you use chip brushes for your block in. I also love that you explain how you let layers dry before adding the next layer building up the painting. Important info as painting wet on wet is very difficult for me. I will look forward to next week!
Glad you liked it Margo.
What an excellent instructor you are! Thank you for demonstrating your painting techniques and thinking process. Very informative. And your paintings are beautiful.
I'm not a painter but Ian Roberts' lessons help non artists view paintings with more understanding and appreciation.
I recently found your videos & was completely captivated! Even though you work in oils & my medium is watercolor you explanation of the basic principles of creating makes so much sense. Thanks
HI Sanka, the principles of composition, as you've noted, aren't limited by medium. Sure the steps of execution might be different but the thinking and ideas behind the composition of paintings in oils or watercolor are the same. all the best.
I just found you in the feed and wow, so so glad. Thank you for sharing your instruction!
Thank you, Ian! 👍🙋🏼♀️
Just want to say I am so grateful to by chance come across your channel. I am a self-taught painter, I struggle and get frustrated when I can't create what I want to because of a lack of knowledge. So, huge thank you to you, I have binge-watched quite a few videos, made notes and improved a huge oil painting that has been 'on the go' for quite a while because I was unsure of how to fix what I felt let the painting down! I look forward to many more tutorials!
Glad you found the videos Kerry. Good luck finishing the big painting.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition Thank you....I am sure my confidence will grow, the more I watch your marvellous informative videos!
Love this painting. Beautiful!
I, like a previous commenter, just saw you on my feed a couple of days ago. I have appreciated the videos I have watched so far. Though I have painted for years, I am always wanting to learn how to improve my work. I also like that they are brief.
I love the way u teach.U are incredible at it.U are also an amazing artist.Not every person "knows" how to teach.Thank u so much.I am forever greatful to u.
Very impressive! Thank you soooo much!
Thanks Ian. You make it seem so easy! And also something that might be within my capability. Looking forward to next week to see what details you add. Right now, that painting looks pretty much 'done' to me.
Hi Francesca, it is pretty much done really. The details just re-establishes the original structure. You'll see on Tuesday. Glad you enjoyed it. All the best.
Thank you so much! Simplification really is a big help for beginner painters like me.
Awesome! 👏👏👏
Another informative demonstration, Ian. Looking forward to next week when you face off with that nitpicking detail beast that usually lurks between an overabundance of detail and the bland oversimplification of shapes. Just like the thumbnail road map of compositional structure that you refer to often, we don't need to concern ourselves with irrelevant minutiae on the way to our destination. As you said, "Detail is not about getting more information in there. You put detail in the places you want to pull the attention, to enhance the structure that we talked about at the very beginning." Yes, we can enjoy the journey, the creative process of getting there, but achieving our goal is why we have embarked on this trip in the first place. We want to ultimately focus on the details of our destination. Simplification based on sound compositional structure gets us there. Thank you, Ian, for your superb weekly tutorials. As one of your many UA-cam students, I hope to progress with "mastering composition." Maybe "mastering" is a odyssey, never a destination where all the "masters" hang out.
HI Christina, good summary there of the lesson. I think mastering in composition is having the tools and skills in place and then constantly challenging how fare you want to push them for drama. That road doesn't end I don't think.
Pure gold information! Thanks so much, Ian, for sharing your precious knowledge!
Glad you liked it. All the best.
I'm a newbie in digital paint of landscapes, BUT this videos, are making me improving. Thanks Mentor!
Ypu make it look easy .. because your so talented !!
👏
Simple, understandable advice! Thank you! I can't wait to start painting again!
That's great. Glad you liked the video(s) and yes paint!
I am appreciating these videos a lot. I've already passed them on to three friends.
Thanks, I learn a lot from your videos.
Great videos. Thanks. Bought your book 9 years ago. Time to read it again for some inspiration
Thanks Victor. Glad you liked it.
Thanks for this Ian, as always I learn some basic information that I didn't have before and Tuesday mornign have become something I look forward to. The simplicity of your water reflectoin on this really caught my eye and I need to try this. Thank you!
Hi Michelle, I'm delighted you are enjoying the Tuesday videos. Thanks for letting me know. Best wishes.
It's simplifying in two ways. The first is instead of beginning the painting or drawing with lots and lots of small shapes, it's starting it with just a few big shapes. The second way it's simplified, is that the actual shape of those big shapes is also simplified.
Instead of putting in a big shape with all the curves, twists, and turns along the outer edge of the shape, it's just put in with simple straight lines or very simple smooth curves. Here that is shown by just putting in the big shapes as simple rectangles. Other big shapes might be simplified into triangles, ovals, or some kind of "trapezium" geometric shapes. Other shapes might be made a little more organic and complex looking, but they should still be basically very simple shapes. After that, smaller shapes are put into the bigger shapes and the outer edges and contours of the simplified shapes can be made more complex and articulated.
This is really an amazing channel by the way. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Just found your site, I paint in detail work and work it until I feel it’s done. I have always tried painting much simpler. I think I’m going to like your site.
A great bit advice I picked up from watching videos and reading excerpts by the great artist Richard Schmid is learning to squint when painting. He said it was key to his process because it eliminates distracting detail and simplifies the shapes and values when either painting in doors or outside. I my case, I just take my glasses off and I'm set.
Those cheap little touch up brushes are fantastic for a quick lay in and texture effects. They're called 'chip brushes' and you can find them in any hardware store or Walmart, Lowes, or Home Depot. They come in all sizes, are natural bristle, and dirt cheap. The fact that they're not a high end brush is what makes them so useful. The bristles are not densely packed into the ferrule and they are excellent for grass and foliage and just feathering out and giving a raggedy edge. Sometimes cheap and humble is better.
I find that squinting is essential in life painting. Just so much information roaring in. But when I paint from photos I don't squint, because the world has been encapsulated unmoving on 2D and in a much narrower range of light and dark and information. So I see what I want to do with the image. From life for sure squinting is essential. I'll to mention this point on this week's video. Thanks for mentioning it.
So so helpful!
Thanks for sharing your knowledge 🙏
You are most welcome.
Really enjoyed this episode, and I felt your larger painting really came to life!
Great. Thanks. I work on it again this week, looking at how to use details as I finish it.
Great and helpful. I'm working on a simple shapes kind of landscape morning on Tomales Bay, and I'm still "blocking in" in watercolor. Detail is last. Thank you for taking us through your thinking!
You are welcome Ralph. I love Tomales Bay.
Great point about how to use details --rather than adding more information to the painting, to pull attention to the structure. Aha moment!
That is the focus of the next video as I finish the painting.
Very informative, Ian. As always, I love watching you paint! Stay well. g
HI Gayle, great to hear from you. All the best.
Very great explain video. I can’t wait for the next part. Your videos are really helping me a lot. Thanks!
Delighted you are enjoying them Frances.
Wow I’ve subscribed. Excellent instruction. Thank yoi
Hi Kascia, Delighted you found the channel. Best wishes.
Thank you Ian Robert
As you are doing this painting it looks so simple and beautiful , Hope my painting too will have the same effect . Thank you 🙏🏾 so much for this simple methods of teaching.The new upcoming artists
Glad you are enjoying the videos Usha. Best wishes.
Great lesson! Long live the structure - the foundation of a picture!
Yes we need a national revolution! Long live the structure.!
wow this was a very good one for me. Thanks
Thanks so much Ian. I have been wanting to do enlarge some of my smaller paintings..this has helped me to wrap my mind around the idea..
Yes Holly. That would be worth trying. Let me know how it goes. All the best.
Phenomenal!
Ian, you are just terrific. and so generous. thank you!
My pleasure Amanda!
Thank you, I liked to watch this.
Love how the light and temperature differences get to play the primary role after the playground has been defined. Really nice!!!
Good observation Patricia.
Wow, this was amazing to watch and think about. This changes things for me, and I thank you!
Hey that is great news. Glad you liked it. All the best.
Thank you so much,,your lessons are helping me so much...to understand ,to learn to paint bigger!, my goal this year is to go out and plain air,,,we still have snow to cold for me, but soon...
I'm delighted you are enjoying the videos. Have fun painting plein air when it gets warmer.
🤯 now to practice seeing things this way. Thank you so much for information that I can use to increase my skills.🙏🏼
a lot of it is practice. Good luck Elsa.
Very good lessons, from Stockholm Sweden
I love the brush....
Its nice to see you getting so many subcribers. YOur videos are quality and to the poiint without being to long. Keep it up.
Thank you so much 😀
Thank you!
You're welcome Jennifer.!
I am so glad that I happened on this channel. I've since bought your book too. Best wishes from Northern Ireland.
Hi Skjtheartist, so glad you found the channel. Enjoy the book too. Thanks and best wishes from LA.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition your videos have lead me to re examine my methods and I've been a full time artist for the past 13 years. Brilliant, thank you.
Holy cow that was fantastic!
Fantastic! Glad you liked it.
Thank you
Ian, I so appreciate all your teachings. I'm getting back into painting and love your videos very much. Please, can you tell me what drawing medium you did the black and white sketch with? It looks like something like charcoal but I love the thick square marks it makes. Thanks!
Ian, you, once again, have given us much to consider in this week’s tutorial......
What I find intriguing in your painting is the visual interest created from the strong vertical, rectangular masses and the reliance of brushwork to develop edges. The deliberate use of firm, soft or vanishing edges is effective and skillfully develops the composition. Although there are no contrasts of geometric forms, no round or curvaceous lines, there is a sense of flow and direction in the piece. But, I am not drawn to a central, focal point.
My eye enters the picture on the lower right. It follows along the edge of the water in the foreground, up to the first grassy rectangle. Next, it moves up slightly to the right, to the mid-ground bush, and then continues upward to the background group of trees. I follow the trees across the back moving to the left and then out of the painting. The path is a ‘zig-zag.’
The structure of your piece is very clear, made possible because of your simplification of the design. This is evidence of your deliberate editing and mapping process in the preliminary stage, prior to beginning the actual painting.
I will be interested to see how and what details you add to complete this piece! Until next week........
Hi Ann Marie, so you have a good eye for following the structure in the painting. This week as I add detail it allows for some shifts to the original structure. You'll see. But still resting on the original structure.
Love those cheap house painting brushes. Great for trees. Used mine yesterday. Still enjoying learning from your videos and sharing with my art friends. Thanks so much! Gosh we have to wait a whole week. We want to see NOW. 😂
I find as those brushes get older they get more and more scraggly and useful. Thank you for sharing the link with your friends and delighted you are enjoying them.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition so true. Scraggly the better. Uncontrolled happy accidents.
Sound advice as always.
Thank you.
I like that moniker The Easel Rider. Best wishes.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition Thanks. Long-time motorcyclist & plein air painter. I put them both together.
Mr, Ian : l would like to see you draw , and paint a western mountain scene sometime to see how you would handle it . With the mtn, shapes, trees, skies, rocks , etc, that make up the western USA terrain .
Hi Ian, I have just found you and watched a couple of your videos with great interest. I am mostly a watercolour painter and I am just wondering if the principles you describe in your video applies to all mediums or more specifically to oils?
I rely like the way you explain and teach, I was wandering if you could,if you mind share the pallet color you used for this particular demo. Could be done in acrylic as well? thank you
Ian, great teaching. How do you handle "fat over lean" with your layers if you are not using any medium? Are you just using straight paint on each layer?
Total Aside - 'C U next Tuesday' is a classic very naughty joke in some circles. I learned it from a naught pair of (hilarious) Brits in a tiny office in Manhattan where I used to work for a while. Something about the acronym.... ;-)
Yes I know. Someone said it was the Simpson's too. But I had never heard it and figured I don't think of it when I say it , so I'm assuming others don't take it that way either. I can't say see you next Wednesday.
Mr , Ian ; l notice almost all your paintings seem to be of Tuscan Italy , or grassy fields with deciduous trees & shrubs ,vineyards ,and roadways . All good subjects of course, and well painted ,and designed. l my self do the same thing with my favorite subject the Rocky Mountain west with conifers, rocks,streams etc. l have a question about your pencil drawings, to get those precise vertical lines on your trees, and buildings do you use a ruler , or do you just have the skill to make tight lines in an order like that to establish tonal value?
That's what I actually want to learn , how to see things and making it simpler.
HI Shivani, next week I'm going to talk about abstraction and how it relates to simplification. They are intimately connected. Best wishes.
Very interesting, enjoying your method and hope I will keep it in mind going forward :
Hi Polecat, I do the weekly videos to sort of nudge the attention towards composition and design each week. So hopefully that'll help.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition you are doing a really good job of it!
I know this isn't the point of the video, but I love the brushwork, the texture and depth in the grassy bushes and trees. Are you using a medium? Thanks!
How long do you leave the oil paint to dry in between layers? Thanks for the demo :)
Замечательно получилось!
I think that means you liked it. All the best Valentina.
Nice
l have noticed so many of today's good prominent western oil painters working today are still designing in the mold of Edgar Payne . l myself like to emphasize the conifer trees ,and blend some of the softer Asian landscape look to the mountain scenes, such as softer backlit forms, three to five layers of values with the taller trees up front.
Could you help us with designing and simplifying a landscape without definite horizontal and vertical lines? I am thinking specifically of a scene I am trying to paint of sand dunes without seeing the obvious horizon line, and no verticals, only triangles, in the background, mid ground and foreground in varying sizes and colors. I am loving your weekly lessons!
Hi Linda, well without seeing the image it is hard to say what to say. I will just say there are way more images I wouldn't paint because the structure doesn't feel strong enough to me, than images I will paint. Ask yourself if it is a good photo, say like you could imagine it in National Geographic, but why turn it into a photo. I am judging your photo obviously, I haven't seen it. I am posing question only to think about before you begin (or don't). Hope that helps.
I hadn't thought about it like that. We are travelling, and I am painting a scene from each place we visit. We had a great day at this location, but perhaps it should stay documented in a photo instead of struggling to make it read in paint.
Does this also apply to architecure buildings? im struggling to do buildings for some reason
Thanks for sharing this. I'm getting a great deal of useful information from your videos. Is there any difference in the process if you are using acrylic paint?
Hi Sandy, the thing I find about acrylics is each layer sort of lays down without the same nuance as oil paint. You can add mediums and get a sense of each layer and of course if the color is just a bit different you get a nice interplay with each layer. Not sure that answers your question.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition I'm not sure what you mean, 'you can add mediums'. But just knowing it is different to a degree, makes me think about how the layers work. I feel there needs to be more layering in acrylic in order to get a good effect. But I've never used oil, so I'm not sure.
Yes, it's good when you realise it's ''Ian's day'. Thanks, as always. Jane
Makes me laugh. Delighted you are enjoying them Jane.
😊
Wonderful! Argh! Now I have to wait a week. ;-) (just kidding.... time to get painting!) Are you using a faster drying medium? How long does it take to dry, in between? Love the work with the big and house-paint non-fancy brushes!
Hi Amy, it takes 2 to 3 days for the paint to dry. I often use a quick drying white for the first coat.
Thanks for the amazing videos! Just one suggestion, could you show the roadmap and the finished painting both together in some frames, so we can pause the video and examine how you've broken down the scene? You may have done this already in some, so sorry if so! Your art work has a special magic about it.
by road map, i mean the thumbnail sketch!
He seems really good. I have to go listen to binaural beats for a while first to get my head clear of the news.
Frank Webb has an excellent book _How to Strengthen Your Paintings with Dynamic Composition._
I'll have to have a look at it. Thanks.
Do you have any tricks to get the first layer to dry faster?
I live in LA and put the painting in the sun and turn it during the day. I dries usually in a day, certainly two. But that is LA weather.
@@IanRobertsMasteringComposition thanks for the tip. I live in Fresno so it should work here!
Hi Ian, again - I'm wondering whether you ever received my email, giving you a link about John Piper, artist? Jane / Oxford
I did Jane. The original email said John Piper but not ? (it is a name I forget now but it was a middle name and I thought you were steering me away from him and that I should look at John Piper without that additional name. But I couldn't find him. So I never really understood which one you were recommending. Sorry. I maybe missed who it was you wanted me to check out.
" . . . rat's nest of informaton . . . " hahaha!
I did make your 1,000 like
Thank you!
Hi Ian - I have sent you a reply email. Jane / Oxford
Got it.