10 Tips to Improve Your Paintings
An eGuide
by Olya Losina Losina Art Center San Diego, CA
Copyright © 2012 Olya Losina, All Rights Reserved
www.LosinaArtCenter.com
A Word From Olya I’ve been teaching art for many years and have always encouraged my students to also paint at home. To help them in their independent practice I created this list of the 10 helpful tips. These tips can be used by art students of all levels, from the beginner to the advanced, and they can be applied to any painting style, abstract or realistic. Using these tips, you can resolve paintings you’ve been struggling with. If you find these tips helpful, write to us to let us know! We would love your feedback on which of the techniques you will have tried, how useful they were for your art, and what you’ve learned from that experience. Thank you! Olya Losina Losina Art Center
[email protected]
Copyright © 2012 Olya Losina, All Rights Reserved
www.LosinaArtCenter.com
10 Tips to Improve Your Paintings
1. The embracing gaze I created this term to help artists instantly recognize this technique of seeing. This special way of looking requires some practice. Step back and look at your painting in a ”hugging” way, without focusing on any particular part of the composition. “Gaze like a cow” -- i.e. gaze nowhere in particular and everywhere at the same time. Try to hold in your attention the entire painting as a whole as you work on it. This effective trick will help you to be aware of the overall impression from the painting. By seeing it “in one gulp” you can effortlessly notice any inconsistency in proportions, color relationships, etc.
2. Tonal values When you feel that something is wrong with your painting and you can’t put your finger on what it is (and you know it is not the anatomy, proportions, perspective, color harmony, etc.), then most likely there is “tonal confusion”. Tonal value is the power-tool of painting, it creates an illusion of form, making the artwork appear convincing and three-dimensional.
3. Compositional variety Every painting, abstract or realistic, needs visual variety of elements: with too many verticals you need some horizontals or diagonals; if you have too many circular forms, add some angular shapes; if all the pictorial elements are small, add a large shape of a single color to create variety. The mind of the viewer gets bored in front of a monotonous composition. Even a painting with many colors can be perceived as monotonous if the shapes are redundant.
4. Looking at your painting in low light Sit down and study your painting at twilight with no lights on. Low light reveals tonal strength in an artwork. You may begin to understand what your painting needs!
5. Squinting An amazing way to see more by seeing less! When you squint you reduce the amount of visual information to the most important, such as compositional idea, tonal relationships, rhythm, etc. So squinting allows you to judge your painting,s technical qualities without the distraction from subject-matter.
Copyright © 2012 Olya Losina, All Rights Reserved
www.LosinaArtCenter.com
10 Tips to Improve Your Paintings
6. Looking at your painting in the mirror See your painting in the mirror to experience it ‘newly’. This may help you to see what does not look right in it.
7. Compositional idea Does your painting have compositional clarity? A painting can be very complex and yet have a very distinct and memorable compositional idea. Compositional idea is a combination of pictorial elements and their organized interaction. Every great painting has one.
8. Chalkiness Chalkiness happens when in an attempt to make their colors more complex, artists mix white paint in every color-mixture. Whether the painting is abstract or realistic, chalkiness makes it look colorless. One of the ways to resolve it is to add some elements in pure black to your composition. Black has the power to make “chalky” areas in a painting appear “luminous”.
9. Muddy colors Muddy (gray and brown) colors can be beautiful and complex, and when well controlled tonally, they may not look muddy. However if you are struggling with muddy colors in your painting, check if you are using Phthalo paint colors. Even though they may be beautiful by themselves, they are chemically very active and invasive, and impossible to control, especially in oils.
10. Turn your painting upside down Often this easy trick stops your mind from giving you its constant self-criticism and adds an element of playfulness into painting. You may be are “trying too hard”. Your conscious brain can be your enemy in art when it tells you what to do. Painting upside down turns it off.
Copyright © 2012 Olya Losina, All Rights Reserved
www.LosinaArtCenter.com
Olya Losina - Bio Olya Losina, born into a family of artists, and raised in Moscow's art community, was educated in the Soviet Union and studied at Moscow University, graduating with a Masters Degree in Fine Art. Losina owned a painting studio in Moscow and was the Art Director for Progress Publishers, the largest multi-lingual publishing facility of the Soviet Union. Here she collaborated with Soviet artists, museums, archives, and European auction houses including Sotheby's Auction.
In 1991, Losina moved from Russia to La Jolla, California, and found herself diving into the local art community, by joining the faculty of the Athenaeum School of the Arts in La Jolla as well as opening her own art school. In 2007, Losina founded the Losina Art Center in San Diego with the purpose of "teaching art as a science". Losina enveloped, in her teaching, this unique approach to the arts.Over 500 individuals in San Diego have been introduced to her transformational way of teaching, which enables art students to view their subjects and advance their ideas in different manners. Her current student body ranges from absolute beginners to emerging artists, all with incredible results. In 2010 Losina was invited to partner with the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, to provide art education to museum members & docents. Losina's teaching method derives from her own experience with studies in Soviet Russia, bringing to the class a cross-cultural feel. Her students have the opportunity to experience the ways of the Russian system of art education. Losina continues to hold strong ties to her homeland, keeping close connections with Russian artists and art collectors. Her extensive knowledge in art, as well as her understanding of the psychology of learning, allow her to reach her students at the subconscious level, when students learn effortlessly. Teaching art in this manner stimulates the creative process, seamlessly slipping in and out of science and language. What sets her apart as a teacher is that she is sincerely interested in each individual's way of accepting information and through that, helps her students find their artistic uniqueness.
Copyright © 2012 Olya Losina, All Rights Reserved
www.LosinaArtCenter.com
