Sculpting a Monster - David Slonim

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This monster took about two hours to sculpt from Sculpey brand modeling compound.    The armature is coat hanger wire and foil.   Baking time in our home oven–45 minutes.   Painted it with acrylics.

My son Daniel shot and edited the video.  Nice work, Daniel!

What do these two paintings have in common?  One is a warm color harmony depiction of  figures pushing a boat at the beach, the other a monochromatic still life which is as much about paint texture as coffee cups.

Sorolla "Morning Sun, (Valencia Beach)"

Diebenkorn "Still Life with Letter" 1961

Both images balance a large mass closer to the center of the canvas with a smaller mass further from the center.     And in both cases the smaller mass repeats shapes and colors found in the larger mass, but differently (repeat with variation).

It’s the ol’ teeter totter trick!  The one we often see in books on composition fundamentals:

The Ol' Teeter Totter Trick

Seeing these two master works side-by-side is a great reminder to me that:

1)  The masters were masters of the fundamental principles of good design.  You never outgrow the basics.

2)  Style is not the point – good design is the point.

3)  Good abstract design is the basis of all truly great representational art.

I’m going to be looking for opportunities to walk in their footsteps and use this idea of balancing a large mass with a small one in my own work.

Cows and Sparrows (30 x 40) oil

I once asked a workshop instructor- a famous painter from NY – in the middle of a portrait demo he was doing,  “what is the difference between accurately painting what you see and making ART?”   Turning from his accurately painted head study,  he glared at me for a moment, and then grunted, “You’ll find out during this workshop.”   Guess what?   He never did tell us.   Looking back, I don’t think he knew.

I’ve spent the last fifteen years since then studying the masters to learn the answer.

Here is one of the bedrock principles that separates great paintings from the rest:

Your painting will only be as expressive & beautiful as your arrangement of darks and lights.

This is true whether you are an abstract expressionist, a hyper-realist, an impressionist, or any other “ist.”  The foundation of great visual communication is the ability to invent gorgeous dark / light relationships.

“Every good picture is fundamentally an arrangement of three or four large masses… any detail or embellishment within the big masses is so subordinated that it in no way disturbs these masses.” -John F. Carlson, Carlson’s Guide to Landscape Painting

“At the outset a fundamental fact must be understood, that synthetically related masses of dark and light convey an impression of beauty entirely independent of meaning.”-Arthur Wesley Dow, (Composition, p. 113, University of California Press, 1997 edition, originally published in 1920 by Doubleday)

In plain English- Every great representational painting is first and foremost a great “abstract” painting.

OK – let’s check in with Degas:

Degas, Henri De Gas and His Niece Lucie De Gas

Often it helps to change the orientation of an image to see the arrangement of lights and darks.  So I’ll flip the Degas piece – and while I’m at it, drop out the color.  As soon as I do I’m reminded of a Richard Diebenkorn painting.

Degas and Diebenkorn — Evesdropping  on their conversation

If you get in the habit of keeping master prints scattered around your work space, you end up making visual connections you wouldn’t otherwise make. So -let’s set the Degas side by side with a Richard Diebenkorn painting…as if they accidentally met on a table in the studio.   (This happens all the time in my studio – I get to “overhear” conversations between the masters).

Degas - Henri De Gas & His Niece Lucie

Diebenkorn, Untitled (Albuquerque) 1950

The Degas and the Diebenkorn have a lot in common where it counts- an arresting arrangement of light and dark, a balance between large and small masses, a balance between line and mass…

Both artists were visual musicians.  The main difference is that Degas’ music has “lyrics” – recognizable subject matter.   Diebenkorn, like a classical or jazz composer is serving up an aesthetic feast, to be enjoyed for it’s rhythms, movement, balance, order, and unity.

Exercise:

Using nothing but your bare hands, a Sharpie pen, and tracing paper, choose several master paintings and trace them, translating the design into simple masses of light and dark.  This is a great warm up to get you in the mood to create.

Here are some examples of tracings I’ve done-

Andrew Wyeth

Sargent

Sargent

Notice how in each example either dark or light dominates?

Also, the darks are connected as much as possible.   It blows me away every time I do this exercise – the masters were butt-kicking abstract designers!

By doing these tracings, we are hanging out with the best designers in history.  Concentrated attention to their work will make us more sensitive to fine spacing, simplification of masses, arresting distribution of lights and darks, etc.

“He who walks with the wise grows wise.”  (Proverbs 13:20)

“The weight and value of a work of art depends wholly on its big simplicity – we begin and end with the careful study of the great spots in relation one to another.”

- Charles Hawthorne, Hawthorne on Painting, Dover Publishing, p. 53)