Advanced Seascape Painting

Final in the Series of Five Monthly Workshops with David Chen

Loosening up Versus Painting Against the Contour

If you are like me, and admire the work of the Impressionist painters, you may look atyour work and think that it looks too ‘tight’ and wish you could ‘loosen up’ your method of painting.

Like me, you may also be confused as to how you go about doing this. This is where the concept of loosening up is usually confused with the method of painting against contours.

In this final workshop for the semester, this very portant method, that will help your paintings to gain some of that more immediacy and freshness, so often seen in the finest impressionist artworks, can begin to be understood and applied.

Portrait Painting for Artists

Session Number Five of Five Workshops with David Chen

Basic Values

When you design a portrait you need to use enough values to help the subject to stand out. Values used correctly, help to bring out your sitter, and push the surrounding area and background back. By abstracting the surrounds with the right values, you can hint at the professiona or personality of the person without allowing everything around them to dominate the painting.

How this is achieved, is by careful use of just enough changes in values.