CHRISTOPHER VIDAL
  • Home
  • The Artist
    • About my work
    • Media/Publications
  • PAINTINGS
    • Paintings for Sale >
      • Landscapes
      • Plein Air
      • Still Life
    • Commissions
    • SOLD Paintings
  • Tuition
    • Online Mentorship
    • Workshops & Demos
    • Plein Air Painting
    • Oil Painting Course
    • Student Works
  • Products
  • Blog
  • Contact

Artist Christopher Vidal  - Blog

Welcome to my blog. The aim of this blog is to share with you some of my experiences related to my artworks, what inspires me and also how it is done. As an artist I am also constantly learning as this is an ongoing process. I also learn from my students when I am teaching in the class. Sharing what I know with others is also very satisfying. This is how we grow and improve. 
I've been teaching art for a while now, and I must say that from this I learned a lot. This helps me to identify what each individual needs in order to become a better painter. Painting is not an easy task especially landscape painting. One needs to have the inspiration to paint a tree or a mountain and it is not a question of just wanting to paint something. I choose to paint something because there was an element that motivated me to do so ...that inspired me. It could be the game of light and shadows or simply the warm colors of a late afternoon. It is sometimes very difficult to translate the colors that nature shows us using paint on a canvas. This challenge could be also a way to motivate you to paint a scenery. 
Most important is that you do not expect that every painting that you paint is going to be a masterpiece. You shouldn't be afraid that your final product is not what you expected in the first place. An unsuccessful painting should be the teaching ground for a better one that follows. This is how we learn. We learn from our own mistakes and from things that didn't work out as we wanted them but with an effort we try to make them better the next time. 
So if you want to become a better painter then you have to practice and paint regularly. This is the only way how you can improve your techniques, discover ones of your own, learn your colors etc. It is all about brush mileage. The tutor is there to help you find your way, shows you the basics and how to use your tools in order for you to be able to develop yourself. 
Looking forward to share with you my knowledge.

The importance of composition and values in a painting.

30/12/2019

0 Comments

 
and A painting is much more than a picture depicting a particular subject matter. For that matter there is nothing special about painting a particular scenery that was painted by so many people over and over again. Each painting should be telling a story, a story that the artist would like to present in a pleasing and artistic way. It does not mean that the subject matter needs to be always nice or pleasing. Caravaggio and many others painted quite gory and macabre subjects, but still they are beautiful works of art admired in museums hundreds of years after being painted. 

So what does composition means? Composition has to do with the placement of shapes in a way that are pleasing to the eye and brain. The concept of composition knows its origins from the time of the Greeks and has a mathematical foundation related to the musical scale and tones. These concepts were further developed during the Renaissance, where it was discovered that the same harmonic ratios that creates sounds and vibrations that are pleasing to the ears have a similar effect on our eyes. Hence the same concepts were applied as the underlying framework of a painting composition. 

This concept can be applied to any kind of painting, whether its a landscape, still life or even figurative. For my latest painting "First light on Cradle Mountain, Tasmania" I used the armature of the rectangle to position some important features within the painting including the direction of light (shown in first picture above). The third picture shows the basic sketch of a still life I was working on recently. On it I drew the same basic lines and its interesting to see that objects were instinctively placed in the right places without any prior construction of lines. It will become second nature and automatically one starts creating appealing compositions instinctively following these guidlines of composition without even trying to do so.  It is a good exercise to find some pictures of masterpieces done by historic or even contemporary artists, print them out and draw on them the lines that make up this armature. Its is amazing what you can learn from such an exercise.

The painting process is executed in steps, during each step one will be isolating and focusing on only one aspect of it. The first step is drawing, focusing on the arrangement of shapes making up a picture. One will need to start from the bigger shapes moving on to smaller shapes including the shapes that make up light and shadow. The next step after drawing is to focus on value, or light and dark. Value is the most important aspect of the three dimensions of colour, if your intention is to create the illusion of form on a flat surface. It is more important than colour itself. However it is the most difficult simply because our brains are not that developed to see it and hence we need to focus on an extensive amount of deliberate practice to train your eyes and brain to see value transitions that sometimes are too subtle for the untrained eye to see. Value is also what gives depth in a painting especially when it comes to landscape painting. This can be complicated by highlights on different objects located at different positions in space within a painting, so initially one needs to focus more on shadow rather than on highlights. These effects are more controlled within a still life, for the simple reason that there is a stationary light source and only a small space to focus on. Once a person understands the concept of how light bends and turns on a few basic shapes then it will be easier for that person to paint complex objects made up of different combinations of these shapes. Understanding these basic concepts is important and useful to paint anything that you want including things from your own imagination, or simply wanting to change lighting conditions in a scenery. In order to check your values in a painting there are different things that you can do. One is to look at the painting from a distance. The wrong value at the wrongs spot can be easily spotted by moving back. Alternatively you can look at the painting through a mirror. Something which really works well for me is to take a photo of the painting and convert it to black and white (as shown in second image above). The painting has to look OK in black and white, if not then one will need to evaluate what's wrong and which values are not in the right place. 

0 Comments

    Author

    As an artist I want to share with you my experiences and what is behind my artwork. Every artwork is an expression of the inner self. It is driven by experience. 

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    September 2024
    August 2024
    June 2024
    February 2024
    August 2023
    May 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    June 2022
    May 2022
    November 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright 2025 christopher vidal.com.au
ABN: 99673806422
  • Home
  • The Artist
    • About my work
    • Media/Publications
  • PAINTINGS
    • Paintings for Sale >
      • Landscapes
      • Plein Air
      • Still Life
    • Commissions
    • SOLD Paintings
  • Tuition
    • Online Mentorship
    • Workshops & Demos
    • Plein Air Painting
    • Oil Painting Course
    • Student Works
  • Products
  • Blog
  • Contact