Saturday, July 08, 2006

Fewer Strokes

The best paintings are often created with the fewest brush strokes. Anyone can make a fairly comprehensive and convincing painting if they dab at it long enough with a tiny brush. The trick is to create the same result using only a few strokes. It's often not an easy task as it takes forethought and conviction. The result will be more powerful, the statement stronger, the conviction more apparent, and the beauty will be seen more clearly with this economy of means. However, it is not an easy task to accomplish and I often find myself picking at a painting with details to try and dig my way out of a painting situation that would have been much better corrected by building a stronger foundation to start with.

1 comment:

Gary Dombrowski said...

When I was a kid I often did not take note of paintings done with few brushstrokes. It was paintings that would show every leaf on a tree or blade of grass got my undivided attention. Though I still ike tight compositions, I find that I'm often moved more by an artist that has done more with less.~Gary