A painting’s economy is how much the painting says with how little paint. It is one of the most important aspects of a painting, and it can be one of the most difficult to master.<\/p>\n
The economy of a painting can dramatically affect its success or failure. A well-executed, but poorly conceived painting will be more respected by some people than a poorly executed, well-conceived one. The economy of your paintings will make a difference to everyone who sees it.<\/p>\n
It all comes down to this: if you want to be an effective artist and have your work appreciated, you must learn the economy of your paintings!<\/p>\n
This article is mostly about the internal economy, which is the relationship between large shapes and small ones. But there are many other factors that contribute to the economy of a painting, including color, values and edges. To read more about all these factors that affect your paintings’ economy, click on “7 Tips for Improving the Paint Economy of Your Painting” in the right column.>>><\/p>\n
Here are some tips to help you get the most out of each painting attempt. These are not necessarily in order of importance, and they are not the only ways to improve your economy of painting.<\/p>\n
Notes on each tip:<\/p>\n
1) Work fast. Speed and confidence go hand-in-hand. Work fast, and you will develop the ability to work quickly as well as confidently. A slower pace will give you lots of time to think about what you are doing and how you are doing it. Working fast means concentrating on what is in front of you and ignoring everything else, including distractions in your mind, which can be managed better by working quickly. Working fast also forces you to consider only the most essential elements in your composition, which helps focus your vision more clearly.<\/p>\n
2) Work small. When you work big, it means that you are trying to use a lot of paint to achieve something that could have been done with less paint if you had smaller brushes or worked more precisely. You should always try to make your brush movements count. Every stroke should be deliberate, intentional and expressive. If the stroke is not necessary or contributes nothing to the painting, don’t do it!<\/p>\n
3) Use a limited palette. There is no need for every color under the<\/p>\n
Many beginning painters focus too much on the details of their paintings and not enough on the overall design. It’s important to remember that you aren’t painting each leaf of each tree individually, but rather a collection of leaves, stems, branches and trunks. If you don’t understand the difference between “painting” and “coloring in” you will be frustrated by your lack of success.<\/p>\n
I’ve written this article to provide some tips for improving your “paint economy” so that you get the maximum effect from each brush stroke. This, in turn, will make your paintings more successful overall, saving you time and energy.<\/p>\n
How do you know if your painting is a success? It’s not by how much time it took to complete. It’s not by how much money it cost you. The only way to judge a painting is to look at it and see if it moves you. If it doesn’t, then it’s not a success.<\/p>\n
Many people will say that your painting is a failure if you don’t sell it. But that isn’t true either. If you’re doing this for the money, then your art is never a failure as long as you enjoy doing it.<\/p>\n
It’s easy to see why some people would think otherwise, though; there are all these other artists out there who seem to have found the secret of success, but they’re still struggling to find their audience. How do they do that?<\/p>\n
Here are seven tips for improving the economy of your painting:<\/p>\n
1) Paint what interests you and what few others want to paint; what no one else has painted before; what no one else has painted very well, or not at all; what others can’t even imagine wanting to paint (for example, your children). Or just paint something because you feel like it. No one else should be able to tell you how or what to paint \u2013 ever again<\/p>\n
If you are an artist, you know the importance of a good value palette. A good palette costs more and takes some practice to learn how to use, but it is worth every penny if it will improve your painting.<\/p>\n
The most important aspect of a good value palette is that the colors are clean and pure. This means they have no contamination from other colors that may be in the palette or on your fingers. If you were to mix two colors together, they should look exactly like what they are supposed to be when they dry, and there should not be any doubt as to which color was used to create them.<\/p>\n
Tinting strength is also very important when creating a palette that is going to work well for you. The tinting strength of a color is how opaque or transparent it will look once it has dried. This can be affected by many different factors including cleanliness of the paint, age of the paint, freshness of the paint, temperature and humidity in the room where you are painting, etc…<\/p>\n
Ideally your paints will all have the same tinting strength so that you can mix them together without changing their opacity (transparency). However, if you mix two colors with different tinting strengths together, this will affect the transparency of the mixed color<\/p>\n
Sure, you can go out and buy the perfect canvas from a professional supplier. But the thing is, that’s not really what you want to do. You want to create something truly unique.<\/p>\n
In your own way, of course. And that’s the hard part: figuring out how to do it in your own way.<\/p>\n
What if you don’t know where or how to begin? That can be an issue for a lot of people. I mean, have you ever tried to start a painting?<\/p>\n
It’s like moving house – it feels like there are only two ways of doing it: either everything will get done in one go, or else nothing will get done at all.*<\/p>\n
There has got to be some kind of middle way!<\/p>\n
While I am not a professional artist, my interest in art goes back many years. I’ve been very interested in learning how to make my own work better and thought this post would be helpful to others as well.