Defining Expansion #3
©2010 Wendy Froshay

Abstracts are Easy - Anyone Can Do an Abstract!

Many people mistakenly believe that abstract painting is the easiest type of painting to create. Just slap some paint on the canvas and you’re good to go, right?

Wrong.

It’s ALL About the Composition. . .
The Elements of Design
For an abstract to be successful, or any piece of art, whether it’s contemporary, photo realism, abstract or sculpture - it must utilize good elements of design.

Do You Know These Basic Components of Design?

• Center of Interest
• Emphasis
• Color Harmony
• Value
• Rhythm
• Unity
• Balance
• Repetition
• Variety
• Movement
• Format
• Texture

And Then There are Those Darn Rules!

• Rule of Odds
• Rule of Space
• Rule of Thirds
• Rule of Opposites
• The Interval Rule
• The Eye Path Rule

Do you know how to use these elements and rules? Do you know how and when to break the rules? Do you understand sweetspots, leads, pointers, blocks and exits? If not, then yup, you are just throwing paint on the canvas.

HUE is the basic name of the color: red, blue, yellow, orange, green, purple.

PRIMARY HUES are Red, Yellow and Blue

SECONDARY HUES are those you get when you mix two primary colors.

ORANGE = Red + Yellow
GREEN = Blue + Yellow
PURPLE = Blue + Red

SHADE is any hue with black added.

TINT is any hue with white added.

TONE is created by adding both white and black to a hue so that the color is grayed down.

VALUE is the relative degree of lightness or darkness of a hue - it’s grayness (white to black).

CHROMA refers to the hue’s intensity or dullness.

.

.

The difference between chroma and value is this. . .

with chroma you are considering how pure or intense the hue is.

with value you are paying no attention to the hue and are only considering the lightness or darkness.

.

.

Got it? Now go paint!
Still don’t have it? Go paint anyway! The whole idea is to have fun with this.

We’re Educating People OUT of Creativity
Why don’t we get the best out of people? Sir Ken Robinson argues that it’s because we’ve been educated to become good workers, rather than creative thinkers. Students with restless minds and bodies — far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity — are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences.

“We are educating people out of their creativity,” Robinson says. It’s a message with deep resonance. Robinson’s TEDTalk has been distributed widely around the Web since its release in June 2006. The most popular words framing blog posts on his talk? “Everyone should watch this.”

Funny, Profound and Entertaining
Sir Ken Robinson is author of Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, and a leading expert on innovation and human resources. In this talk, he makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for creating an education system that nurtures creativity, rather than undermining it.

This is a 20 minute video, so settle back when you have the time - it is so well worth the viewing!

Little Girl whose Now a Multi-Millionaire
One of the most extraordinary parts is about the little girl who couldn’t sit still in class - they thought she had a learning disorder. Turns out - well, she’s someone quite famous. You’ll just have to watch this for yourself!

Enjoy! Tell me what YOU think!

DISCOVER SOMETHING NEW TO DO
If you live in the Orange County area of California or are planning a visit on March 20, 2010, make plans to stop in and browse the First Annual Froshay STUDENT ART SHOW.

The show is Free, open to the public and features Artwork created by students of the Froshay Fine Art Studio. It’ll be casual, Open House style between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm.

Bring your girlfriends, your boyfriends, your co-workers, your boss. Bring your friends, bring your family. . . and what the heck - bring your friend’s family and your family’s friends too!

. . . and did I mention that it’s free?

SUPPORT THE ARTS
Feel free to pull this flyer, print it out and post it:

• on your fridge
• by the coffee machine at work
• on your church bulletin board
• at your local library
• and everywhere that art loving people congregate.

.

The Principle of Dynamic Contrasts
This simple principle will add power to your art: If you have one area that is complex, keep the other areas relatively simple.

For Instance:

• When the face in a portrait is complex - keep the background and clothing simple
• If your landscape is complex - then keep the sky simple
• If the sky is filled with drama - keep the landscape simple
• If your vase full of flowers is complex - keep the background, table top, etc… simple

Notice how Picasso in his ‘Still Life with Skull, Leeks and Pitcher’, uses this principle. His simple background creates a foil for the complex subject matter.

Smart guy, eh?

Remember this SIMPLE FORMULA:

Focal Area = Complexity
Everything Else = Simplicity

••••••••

Photo Credit: Thanks *clarity*!

Practice Comparing
. . . and I don’t mean practice comparing your art to others art - especially to a professional’s. In my classes I teach that you should only be comparing the art you create today, to your previous creations. This way you see how you’ve grown rather than beating yourself up for not being ‘perfect’. There is no perfect or right way in art.

Compare Relationships
The comparing I’m talking about is the comparing of relationships.
Relationships of:

• Values
• Colors
• Shapes
• Textures
• Movement
• Position
• and Light

Your eye will become more and more sensitive to all the delicious, delicate relationships as you increase your powers of observation - thus increasing your skills in your art.

Yup - this was a trick. Practicing Comparing is still Practicing Seeing.

•••••••••

Photo Credit: Thank you *clarity*!

“When Everyone is Shouting, No ONE is Heard”
I learned this from one of my college art instructors and I pass if forward to all of my students. Truer words were never spoken!

If all of your colors are intense and bright (screaming), then no one AREA stands out. You have no focal point and your viewer doesn’t know where to look. If all you have is chaos, your viewers’ eye will run away screaming.

Offer Resting Areas
Kind of like a roller coaster, if you don’t have some slower, resting areas, there is no thrill for the BEST part. Bright color stands out best against grayed colors. Grayed colors are your resting areas. So save the intensity for your focal point.

Nuff said.

••••••••

Photo Credit: Thank you Express Monorail!

Gargoyle Commission
In 2005 I was commissioned to create this Gargoyle in watercolors and I usually take photos during the progression of a painting to share with the client.

My students often ask to watch me paint - I have a sneaking suspicion that they learn a great deal from the observation . . .  Their asking triggered the idea of creating this slide to share with you. Although it does not show me actually painting, it will give you some idea of how I develop a watercolor.

Watercolor Technique
My style of watercolor painting is different than the ‘norm’ and I credit this to my most favorite instructor, Kathy Sutherland. She is a genius, a wonderful mentor, and beloved friend who I was blessed to have studied under.

Gargoyle was created on 300# Arches watercolor paper, is 22″ x 30″and took approximately one month to complete. Although the original is in a private collection, limited edition giclees are available upon request.

Predictable + Repetitious = Monotonous
Does your family “ooh and aah” over your art - but no one else is purchasing? Perhaps your artwork has the blahs.

Many people leave their success to chance by focusing only on technique - hoping and praying that all those niggly details will make their art great.

But Great Art is a complex accumulation of knowledge that focuses more upon COMPOSITION rather than technique alone.

Rules of Composition
One of those FIRST Rules of Composition deals with the subject of Variety. Variety is one of hundreds of ways to add interest to your Art. So how do you add variety?

1. Vary the spaces between the objects depicted
2. Vary the dimension of the shapes
3. Vary their placement
4. Vary the visual weight of areas
5. Vary the energy of things
6. Vary their weight, height, length and angle
7. Vary orientation
8. Vary the complexity of areas
9. Vary the complexity subjects
10. Vary the values (light & shadow) in good balance

A Word of Caution
Too much variety invites visual chaos. Getting the right balance requires practice.

How to Beat the Blahs
Practicing on your own is good, but going it alone takes discipline, dedication and years testing and searching. Practicing via classes and great instructors is liberating and will yield far greater results much quicker. Artists who continue to take classes tend to be the ones who grow the most and excel the most.

A good instructor doesn’t just give guidance and feedback, but fuels your passion, inspires your confidence and elevates you closer to the joy of creating by helping you to ‘see with the eyes of an artist‘.

In the Beginning
The other day my 17 year old son was busy in the kitchen nuking a whole platter of frozen burritos - as a snack.

He did a big smile when he saw me, “Know what I’m going to give my sister for Christmas this year?” he said. “They’ve got these super-huge stuffed teddy bears for sale at work and I gonna pick one up this afternoon.”

Now mind you, his older sister lives about 400 miles north of us in a teeny-tiny apartment and I happen to know… detests stuffed animals.

“How are you going to get it to her?” I maneuver.

“Isn’t she coming down for Christmas?”

“Nope, and even if she were, she drives a super small car. How would she to fit the bear into it?”

“Oh.”

Gnawing his lip a little, he begins listing other things that I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be interested in either. So like a good Mom, I tactfully shoot them all down until cross-eyed he blows out a sigh, “Well, what do you think she would like?”

“I know she needs money…” I tell him.

This gets me to pondering my gift list and I ask him what he would like for Christmas.

With a toothy grin he raises one eyebrow and replies, “Money!” and I start thinking, “Yeah, me too…”

That’s When I Get Hit
… with this Brilliant Idea and I say to him, “Hey, how about I give you $500 for Christmas?”

His eyes go wide, “Yeah?!” Then he leans his elbows on the table and his face goes all dreamy.

“Then you send your sister $500…” I notice his spine stiffen and his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“And she can send me $500!” I see his mind doing a “Huh?”

Then he pivots and reading my thoughts, a major grin splits his face.

This is how screwy the artistic mind can be. My kids are use to it. In fact, they’ve inherited my crazy thought processes.

This is Great!
We all get a warm Christmas Spirit glow from giving an especially generous gift. We get that joyful feeling when we receive a windfall, and the best part? It’s way easy on the pocket!

I can just hear the conversations now… “What’d you get for Christmas?”

“Me?” I shrug, “I got 500 bucks!”

“No way, man! - I wish someone would give me $500 for Christmas!”

Go For It
Now You can, ’cause you know the plan! To heck with the economy, no more shopping ‘n crowds, no more wondering if you’ve found the perfect gift. Just rotate this through your whole gift chain. You know they’ll love what you give and your gonna love what you get too! It’s a win-win.

Now go forth and and have yourself that Merry Little Christmas we’re all dreamin’ about. And when the bills come in after the Holidays, you can sit back, put your feet up with a cup’o hot cocoa and toast the New Year with abandon - no Holiday bills for you!

••••••••

Photo Credit: Thank you Loren Javier!