Great compositions rarely arrive fully formed in your head. They require rough drafts. A color study is where that happens. Here's an example.
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| Frank Bramley, Study for Domino!, 8 3/4 x 10 1/4" |
For example, Frank Bramley (1857-1915) came up with an interesting idea for a painting: A girl and a woman sit at a table. The white dress fuses with the tablecloth to make a larger shape. And the dark shape of the chair blends with other dark shapes.
Nice idea, but still a little "blah." The wall and the ground plane are flat and undefined, and the white shape is stuck in the middle.
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| Frank Bramley, Domino!, 24 x 36" |
Everything is a foil for the big effect. Those linked white shapes cascade into the foreground, all painted with that angular, square-brush technique. Great shapes, no lazy edges.
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Books: Stanhope Forbes and the Newlyn School
4 comments:
It's so cool to see how much he makes up in his head to improve the painting. This is where I'm struggling myself at the moment, I find it difficult to paint from imagination (which is why your book is on my to buy-list).
He also set the action further back into the picture plane, giving the viewer some space to enter the composition.
Great analysis. I learned a lot. I like paintings from life, but I can perhaps appreciate even more the intentional self contained artistic statement which comes about from gleaning material from studies for use in carefully planned studio compositions.
Great example of designing a image with value and shape. Didn't know Frank's work before going to look it up now.
THanks
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