The Color of Light: An Artist's Blog

There are seven main elements in art:  line, shape, color, form, value, space, and texture. These elements can overlap each other and some elements are more important than others depending on the particular piece of art. 

I want to talk a little bit about shape today. It is such an important element to get right if you want to create a successful painting. When I look at a landscape and am drawn to it, oftentimes it is because of the shapes within it. It may seem that it's the color or values we love, which are also important and usually get all the attention and applause. But shapes are the pieces of the puzzle that either make the piece fit together or seem disjointed. 

One of the most important stages of a painting for me is the beginning stage when I get my initial drawing in. I'm not going for a detailed depiction here, but a chunky and simple block in of the shapes. These will be continually adjusted throughout the painting, but the initial drawing gives me a place to start. 

As I continue on my painting journey, I find that more and more my mind thinks of objects within the scene as shapes (for example, instead of thinking that I'm painting a tree, I think I'm painting a triangle or a c-curve, etc). Check out the two photos of this painting in progress. Can you see how I focus on shapes?